“A house divided against itself cannot stand” were the words then senatorial candidate Abraham Lincoln spoke when he addressed the Illinois Republican Convention on this day in 1858. He was paraphrasing a verse in the New Testament–Mark 3:25 “If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”
I wonder if Lincoln knew just how true those words were when he spoke them. Could he have envisioned that a civil war would result from that division?
Is history repeating itself? This house–this nation–which has survived so much is so completely divided again. Democrats and republicans are divided probably more than they ever have been in the past. The parties themselves are even divided. Democrats are trying to one-up each other on who can be more of a socialist. Republicans are splintering into groups who are willing to compromise yet again and vote for a non-conservative and those who are done compromising.
But it goes beyond that.
Different races are supporting, even demanding in some cases, separate spaces. We have the bathroom wars and class wars. Right to life versus right to kill, and the war on Christianity. States are fighting the federal government. The list goes on and on.
It certainly seems as if history is repeating itself but on a grander scale. If the end result of the division Lincoln spoke of was civil war which cost so many lives, what does that mean for us? How many lives will be lost this time?
