MR. LINCOLN was a statesman. The great stumbling-block--the great
obstruction--in Lincoln's way, and in the way of thousands, was the old
doctrine of States Rights.
This doctrine was first established to protect slavery. It was clung to
to protect the inter-State slave trade. It became sacred in connection
with the Fugitive Slave Law, and it was finally used as the corner-stone
of Secession.
This doctrine was never appealed to in defence of the right--always in
support of the wrong. For many years politicians upon both sides of this
question endeavored to express the exact relations existing between the
Federal Government and the States, and I know of no one who succeeded,
except Lincoln. In his message of 1861, delivered on July the 4th, the
definition is given, and it is perfect:
"Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole--to the
General Government. Whatever concerns only the State should be left
exclusively to the State."
When that definition is realized in practice, this country becomes a
Nation. Then we shall know that the first allegiance of the citizen is
not to his State, but to the Republic, and that the first duty of the
Republic is to protect the citizen, not only when in other lands, but
at home, and that this duty cannot be discharged by delegating it to the
States.
Lincoln believed in the sovereignty of the people--in the supremacy of
the Nation--in the territorial integrity of the Republic.