“A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.”
I have a hard time believing that “All Men Are Created Equal” and that the “Consent of the Governed” as described in the Declaration of Independence are in evidence in 21st century America. Nor do I believe that Americans fully appreciate how a consensus of opinions can shape legislation and amendments that can come about pursuant to the concept of self-government as it applies to the formation of “A More Perfect Union”. Described in the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America. Are we really a “Government of the People, by the People, and for the People” as Abraham Lincoln believed of Americans in his Gettysburg Address, or not?
The best description of how the world saw America in the 20th century can be summed up like this. From Japanese Admiral Yamamoto in the days just after the attack on Pearl Harbor:
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
We are living through a time where divisions in our country are as stark and dangerous as they were before the Civil War. Where Americans are being divided along ideological, political, social, and religious lines that have Americans at each other’s throat. And, just as it was before the Civil War, family members are caught up unwilling and unable to seek common ground.
When Abraham Lincoln spoke about the consequences of a “house divided” he was responding to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford. He was expressing his concern about the brewing crisis facing America pursuant to the issues evolving around slavery. As a student of history, he understood how fragile this experiment in Democracy was proving to be. He had a clear understanding of the forces arrayed against it.
Dred Scott v Sanford (1857)
“Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guaranteed by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution.”
[No} State, since the adoption of the Constitution, can by naturalizing an alien invest him with the rights and privileges secured to a citizen of the State under the Federal Government…It cannot make him a member of this community by making him a member of its own. And for the same reason it cannot introduce any person, or description of persons, who were not intended to be embraced in this new political family, which the Constitution brought into existence, but were intended to be excluded from it…the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.”
Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” Speech, 1858
“If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. “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. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South”.
These divisions are the result of decades of outright lies, disinformation and propaganda being spread by allegedly credible, as well as manufactured sources. In 21st century America Fox News stands out as one of the most aggressive platforms for all these lies, disinformation, and propaganda. This from Roger Ailes to the Nixon Administration in 1970, speaks for itself.
A Plan for Putting the GOP on TV News
“For 200 years the newspaper front page dominated public thinking. In that last 20 years that picture has changed. Today television news is watched more than people read newspaper. Than people listen to radio. Than people read or gather any other form of communication. The reason: People are lazy. With television you just sit—watch—listen. The thinking is done for you.”
