--- title: Hillary Clinton Invokes Lincoln: Transcript of His Speech description: Abraham Lincoln gave his famous "house divided" speech at the Old State House in Illinois, where Hillary Clinton spoke on Wednesday canonical: https://time.com/4404754/abraham-lincoln-house-divided-text-hillary-clinton/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-13T17:32:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:13:48.933Z article:section: History og:title: Read the Abraham Lincoln Speech Mentioned by Hillary Clinton in Illinois og:description: "I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free" og:url: https://time.com/4404754/abraham-lincoln-house-divided-text-hillary-clinton/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54881773f918c040/69889bcd428a9e3571cd3694/abraham-lincoln-house-divided.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4942 og:image:height: 2780 og:image:alt: Abraham Lincoln Portrait og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Read the Abraham Lincoln Speech Mentioned by Hillary Clinton in Illinois twitter:description: "I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54881773f918c040/69889bcd428a9e3571cd3694/abraham-lincoln-house-divided.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Read the Abraham Lincoln Speech Mentioned by Hillary Clinton in Illinois > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Jul 13, 2016 5:32 PM UTC  Portrait of American President Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865), the sixteenth President of the United States, dressed in a suit and bow tie, April 9, 1865\. Five days after this portrait was taken President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while attending a performance of 'Our American Cousin' at Ford's Theater. Portrait of American President Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865), the sixteenth President of the United States, dressed in a suit and bow tie, April 9, 1865\. Five days after this portrait was taken President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while attending a performance of 'Our American Cousin' at Ford's Theater. Alexander Gardner/Getty Images  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Jul 13, 2016 5:32 PM UTC [Hillary Clinton](http://time.com/4403680/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-poll-13-points/) invoked the words of Abraham Lincoln on Wednesday, [as she spoke at the Old State House](http://time.com/4404890/hillary-clinton-dallas-shooting-speech/?xid=tcoshare) in Springfield, Ill., where Lincoln delivered a historic speech about national division nearly 160 years ago. Lincoln spoke on June 16, 1858, at the state Republican convention in Springfield after winning the party’s nomination for U.S. Senate, a race he would ultimately lose to Democrat Stephen Douglas. “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand,'” Lincoln famously said, in the speech that would come to be known by that title. “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.” The speech was controversial at the time, [Clinton noted on Wednesday](http://time.com/4404897/hillary-clinton-speech-illinois-transcript/). “Some thought he ended up losing the Senate race because of that speech, but then he ended up winning the presidency—and some thought it was because of that speech,” she said, drawing a connection between the divisions facing the nation today and those that faced the nation, on a different scale, during Lincoln’s time. Here is [the full text from Lincoln’s](http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/lincoln-a-house-divided-speech-text/) historic speech: --- > “” --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4404754/abraham-lincoln-house-divided-text-hillary-clinton/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4404754/abraham-lincoln-house-divided-text-hillary-clinton/"},"headline":"Read the Abraham Lincoln Speech Mentioned by Hillary Clinton in Illinois","datePublished":"2016-07-13T17:32:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:13:48.933Z","description":"\"I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free\"","url":"https://time.com/4404754/abraham-lincoln-house-divided-text-hillary-clinton/","keywords":["politics","Hillary Clinton","Presidents","transcripts"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54881773f918c040/69889bcd428a9e3571cd3694/abraham-lincoln-house-divided.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katie Reilly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54881773f918c040/69889bcd428a9e3571cd3694/abraham-lincoln-house-divided.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Abraham Lincoln Portrait","caption":"Abraham Lincoln Portrait","creditText":"Alexander Gardner/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4404754/abraham-lincoln-house-divided-text-hillary-clinton/","name":"Read the Abraham Lincoln Speech Mentioned by Hillary Clinton in Illinois"}}]}] ```