The words “strengthen, perpetuate, and extend” are a commencing series because they act on the word “interest.” Slavery was the object for which the insurgents would separate the Union, even by going to the extreme of making war; while the Federal Government claimed merely the right to prevent its spreading into the territories. What makes this sentence so clear and so forceful is the manner in which the contrast is brought out regarding the acts of the insurgents and the claims of the Government.
One of the most expressive and best constructed sentences in English literature is the following from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
This is a triple opposition, “The world will little note nor long remember” being contrasted with “but it can never forget,” “we” with “they,” and “say” with “did.”
Another beautiful specimen of construction is the last paragraph of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right—let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.
Had Lincoln merely said “with malice toward none” it would not have meant half so much as it does with the words “with charity for all” added. This example emphasizes the force of contrast, for by stating the positive “with charity for all” as well as the negative “with malice toward none,” he makes his expressed thought clear, strong, and comprehensive, clinching the subject and leaving no possible loophole for a misunderstanding to creep in. “With firmness in the right” is fittingly qualified by “as God gives us to see the right,” and the thought is splendidly closed with “let us strive on to finish the work we are in.” Then by means of a concluding series he states what this work is that we should strive to finish, and he concludes with the general summing up, “to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”
Daniel Webster, in his address on the occasion of the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument, used this sentence:
Human beings are composed, not of reason only, but of imagination also, and sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor misapplied which is appropriated to the purpose of giving right direction to sentiment, and opening proper springs of feeling in the heart.
The orator states that reason is a portion of the composition out of which human beings are made, but that it is not the only ingredient; that imagination is a part also, as is sentiment, and that nothing is either wasted or misapplied which is used in rightly directing feeling, and freeing the heart of all obstructions in order that its emotions may come forth. In doing this, Webster uses the qualified negative “not of reason only,” meaning, of course, that human beings are composed of reason, but stating that they are not composed “only” of reason, but of reason, imagination, and sentiment, and then, by means of two negatives, “neither” and “nor,” he states that whatever is used for the object of rightly directing sentiment is not wasted and not misapplied.