Abraham Lincoln, Volume I

by Jr. John T. Morse

been saved by the sitting of Congress; while, on the other hand, the members had had the great advantage of having time to think soberly concerning the business before them, and to learn the temper and wishes of their constituents.

Mr. Lincoln took great pains with his message, which he felt to be a very important document. It was his purpose to say simply what events had occurred, what questions had been opened, and what necessities had arisen; to display the situation and to state facts fairly and fully, but not apparently to argue the case of the North. Yet it was essential for him so to do this that no doubt could be left as to where the right lay. This peculiar process of argument by statement had constituted his special strength at the bar, and he now gave an excellent instance of it. He briefly sketched the condition of public affairs at the time when he assumed the government; he told the story of Sumter, and of the peculiar process whereby Virginia had been linked to the Confederacy. With a tinge of irony he remarked that, whether the sudden change of feeling among the members of the Virginian Convention was "wrought by their great approval of the assault upon Sumter, or their great resentment at the government's resistance to that assault, is not definitely known."

He explained the effect of the neutrality theory of the Border States. "This," he said, "would be disunion completed. Figuratively speaking, it

would be the building of an impassable wall along the line of separation,—and yet not quite an impassable one, for under the guise of neutrality it would tie the hands of the Union men, and freely pass supplies to the insurrectionists.... At a stroke it would take all the trouble off the hands of secession, except what proceeds from the external blockade." It would give to the disunionists "disunion, without a struggle of their own."

Of the blockade and the calls for troops, he said: "These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity, trusting then, as now, that Congress would ratify them." At the same time he stated the matter of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, which has been already referred to.

Speaking of the doctrine that secession was lawful under the Constitution, and that it was not rebellion, he made plain the genuine significance of the issue thus raised: "It presents ... the question whether a Constitutional Republic or Democracy, a government of the people by the same people, can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control the administration according to the organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government, and thus

practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: Is there in all Republics this inherent fatal weakness? Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?" The Constitution of the Confederacy was a paraphrase with convenient adaptations of the Constitution of the United States. A significant one of these adaptations was the striking out of the first three words, "We, the people," and the substitution of the words, "We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States." "Why," said Mr. Lincoln, "why this deliberate pressing out of view the rights of men and the authority of the people? This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men ... to afford to all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.... This is the leading object of the government for whose existence we contend. I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand and appreciate this."

Many persons, not gifted with the power of thinking clearly, were disturbed at what seemed to them a purpose to "invade" and to "subjugate" sovereign States,—as though a government could invade its own country or subjugate its own subjects! These phrases, he said, were producing "uneasiness in the minds of candid men" as to

what would be the course of the government toward the Southern States after the suppression of the rebellion. The President assured them that he had no expectation of changing the views set forth in his inaugural address; that he desired "to preserve the government, that it may be administered for all as it was administered by the men who made it. Loyal citizens everywhere have a right to expect this,... and the government has no right to withhold or neglect it. It is not perceived that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or any subjugation."

In closing he said that it was with the deepest regret that he had used the war power; but "in defense of the government, forced upon him, he could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the government." Compromise would have been useless, for "no popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election." To those who would have had him compromise he explained that only the people themselves, not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions. He had no power to agree to divide the country which he had the duty to govern. "As a private citizen the executive could not have consented that these institutions shall perish; much less could he, in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as these free people have