Read the following excerpt speech and answer the question in full sentences, please :)


A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.

—Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858


What is a historical idea or event that supports Lincoln’s point of view? (besides the civil war)