Abraham Lincoln delivered this speech after he accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination for Senator. Hinging his address on the Biblical verse, "a house divided against itself cannot stand," Lincoln emphasized how the expansion of slavery into the territories as well as the Dred Scott decision threatened freedom across the United States. Furthermore, Lincoln argued that America (i.e., the "house") would no longer be divided and was in danger of becoming "all one thing or all the other," i.e., either a completely free nation or a completely slave nation.