BACK THERE IN '58
nuthin' on but his shirt, and when he see my eyes was open he sings out, 'I tell you, Judge, this country can't last much longer half-slave and half-free.' Bin thinkin' all night far's I know."
Now, sir, that was much as three years before Mr. Lincoln said them self-same words in a speech right in this town. Seems to me I can hear him now singin' it out shrill and far-soundin'. "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all the one thing or all the other." Them's his very words. It made me cold when I heard 'em. If we wa'n't goin' to git on half-slave and half-free like we'd always done, what was goin' to happen?
He hitched on another idee to this one about our becomin' all slave or all free,
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