A House Divided

"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, Illinois Republican State Convention, June 16, 1858

This week, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was asked about his position on abortion in the wake of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. “As a conservative,” Christie said, “I want to see that issue go back to the individual states where it belongs.”

On the surface, that sounds reasonable, right? After all, the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

However – and it is a very big however – what about certain moral issues that, at least in my humble opinion, transcend all others? One such issue was slavery which, at the time Lincoln gave his memorable “A House Divided” speech, was about to tear our nation apart.

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had divided the country along the 36°30′ parallel. Slavery was outlawed in states above that arbitrary line of demarcation, whereas slavery was legal in states that were below it. Hence, when Maine and Missouri simultaneously applied for statehood, the Pine Tree State entered as a free state and the Show Me State entered as a slave one.

Not everyone was happy with the Missouri Compromise. In fact, the House debates were described as "rancorous", "fiery", "bitter", "blistering", "furious" and "bloodthirsty". Georgia Congressman Thomas Cobb declared, “You have kindled a fire which all the waters of the ocean cannot put out, which seas of blood can only extinguish.” Meanwhile, James Tallmadge, Jr. of New York countered by saying (rather prophetically) that “If a dissolution of the Union must take place, let it be so! If civil war, which gentlemen so much threaten, must come, I can only say, let it come!”

That unhealthy and unsustainable balancing act remained in effect until the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, ironically championed by Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln’s future opponent in the 1860 presidential race. Lincoln excoriated Douglas for supporting the new law, setting the stage for their seven debates during the Illinois Senate campaign in 1858. Although Douglas won that election, the pair faced off two years later for the presidency, with Honest Abe coming out on top this time.

My point in this mini history lesson is simple: kicking the proverbial can down the road on monumental moral issues that define us as a people only serves to delay and exacerbate the inevitable. In order to free the estimated 4 million slaves that were held in the South in 1861, the blood of approximately 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers was shed.

No one today – let alone a supposedly conservative Republican like Chris Christie – would argue that slavery should have been allowed to continue below the 36°30′ parallel. And yet, 63 million innocent preborn children have been slaughtered since the Roe v. Wade ruling. That is 15 times the number of slaves at the start of the Civil War, which begs the question: Should we really allow each state to decide if it’s OK to murder babies in their mothers’ wombs?

I pray that we will see a day in the not-too-distant future when abortion, just like slavery, is illegal in every American state and territory. To settle for a half-free and half-slave country was wrong then… and so is a country now where infanticide is legal anywhere.