house divided
Fractured domestic unit
A house divided is a group—family, organization, or nation—torn by internal conflict.
The phrase comes from the biblical warning that "a house divided against itself cannot stand," later invoked by Abraham Lincoln about American slavery.
It suggests that internal discord threatens survival more than external enemies: The party became a house divided over immigration policy.
- Thirteenth AmendmentConstitutional ban on bondage
- Lincoln-Douglas debatesPre-Civil War senatorial disputes
- copperheadsVenomous snakes named for coloring
- Civil War eraMid-nineteenth-century American conflict period
- Dred Scott decision1857 ruling denying Black citizenship
partition · abolition movement · antislavery · brother against brother · Kansas-Nebraska Act · Gettysburg Address · border states · oratory · sectionalism · states' rights · Reconstruction · national unity · moral leadership · Fort Sumter · civil liberties · Mary Todd Lincoln · statesman · John Wilkes Booth
- Building metaphorsfoundation, building blocks, cornerstone, pillar, framework
house dividedunited front
Coalition presenting as one
solidarity · harmony · unanimity · united we stand · common cause
house dividedunited we stand
Motto of collective strength
band of brothers · tight-knit community · well-oiled machine · unbreakable bond · strength in numbers
house, divided, houses, housed, housing, housekeeper, household, housework, housewife