One thing that gets sanded off in popular history is just how possible an alternate history seemed to people at the time. Like the modern assumption that slavery was going to die off is not at all reflected in the speech!
The line about hoping Missouri votes to be free but waking up finding out Illinois is a space state just feels like such a relevant experience!
Like you can imagine those people hoping to get a slightly bigger senate majority to pass a stronger bill to slightly weaken slavery just like we do today!
“The proposition is indisputably true .…I want to use some universally known figure, expressed in simple language as universally known, that it may strike home to the minds of men in order to rouse them to the peril of the times.’” He slices, he dices. https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/house.htm
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Like you can imagine those people hoping to get a slightly bigger senate majority to pass a stronger bill to slightly weaken slavery just like we do today!