Annotate where it talks about the The "house" in Lincoln's statement represents the United States and the people in the Union. In 1860, after one of the strangest elections in the nation's history, an Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln was elected president. On learning of his victory, Lincoln said to the reporters covering the campaign, “Well, boys, your troubles are over; mine have just begun.”

Within a few weeks, it became clear just how heavy those troubles would be. By the time Lincoln took office, the nation had split apart over the issue of states' rights regarding slavery and was preparing for civil war. The survival of the United States of America, and the fate of 4 million slaves, rested in Lincoln's hands.

The issues Lincoln faced could be traced back to 1619, when the first slave ship arrived in Virginia. Since that time, slavery had ended in half of the United States, and the question remained whether the nation could continue being half-slave and half-free.

For decades, Americans tried to avoid this question, and many hoped slavery would simply die out on its own. Instead, slavery began to expand into new territories, and the question could no longer be ignored.

Between 1820 and 1860, Americans tried to fashion several compromises on the issue of slavery, but these compromises created new problems and new divisions. Slavery was not simply a political issue to be worked out through compromise. Rather it was a deeply moral issue, which is something Lincoln understood. As he wrote in a letter to a friend, “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”

In this lesson, you will learn how Americans tried to keep the United States united despite their deep divisions over slavery. Some events during this period kept the nation together, whereas others pulled it apart. You will also find out how Americans finally answered the question of whether a nation founded on the idea of freedom could endure half-slave and half-free.