Lincoln hoped to use a well-known figure of speech to help rouse the people to recognition of the magnitude of the ongoing debates over the legality of slavery. His use of this paraphrased metaphor is perhaps clearer when you look at some more of his speech:
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe the 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.
As you can see, in this metaphor, the "house" refers to the Union — to the United States of America — and that house was divided between the opponents and advocates of slavery. Lincoln felt that the ideals of freedom for all and the institution of slavery could not coexist — morally, socially, or legally — under one nation. Slavery must ultimately be universally accepted or universally denied.
There were a lot of raids in Africa which led Africans to sell those captured to the Europeans for slavery.
Hope this helped hon :)
Shams ad-Din Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Luwati at-Tanyi, better known as Ibn Battuta was an important Muslim traveler who was born in the mid 14th century in Morocco; although little is known about him, it is said that he would have traveled longer distances than Marco Polo, Ibn Yuzayy, a Historian to whom Battuta would have told his travels, wrote the Rhila or their chronicles.
In one of these chronicles, he reached Mogadishu and several impressions were recorded. First of all, some customs,such as the one of approaching travelers´ vessels before they arrive to the harbor and offer different services, such as food and hospitality. He found people from Mogadishu generous and welcoming, and described the city as very big, noticing that there was an active trade of sheeps and camels, as there was a big amount of those animals being slaughtered there.
Later in the chornicles, as he was invited to stay in Mogadishu at the Sultan´s home -Bakr ibn Shaikh Umar-, a description of the customs regarding the Sultan´s activities is recorded, particularly in his role as head and leader of the community.
The Ems Dispatch was an internal message from the Prussian King to Otto von Bismarck in Berlin. The message ignited 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war.
