Excerpt from "A House Divided" a speech by Abraham Lincoln "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. What does the house symbolize? the entire world a government building Abraham Lincoln's home the United States as a whole