institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no
lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had
made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And,
more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a
law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now
read:
"Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and
especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic
institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential
to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our
political fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed
force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext,
as amongst the gravest of crimes."
I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press upon
the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is
susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to
be in any wise endangered by the now incoming administration. I add, too,
that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and
the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when
lawfully demanded, for whatever cause--as cheerfully to one section as to
another.
There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from
service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the
Constitution as any other of its provisions:
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation
therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered
up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those
who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the
intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their
support to the whole Constitution--to this provision as much as to any
other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the
terms of this clause "shall be delivered up," their oaths are unanimous.
Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with
nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good
that unanimous oath?
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced
by national or by State authority; but surely that difference is not a
very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but
little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And
should any one in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a
merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?
Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of
liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so
that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it
not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that
clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizens of each
State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in
the several States"?
I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with no
purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules.
And, while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as
proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all,
both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all
those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting
to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President
under our national Constitution. During that period fifteen different
and greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession, administered the
executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many
perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of
precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional
term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of
the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution,
the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not
expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe
to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic
law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express
provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure
forever--it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not
provided for in the instrument itself.
Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association
of States in the nature of contract merely, can it as a contract be
peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to
a contract may violate it--break it, so to speak; but does it not require
all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in
legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of
the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was
formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured
and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further
matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted
and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation
in 1778. And, finally, in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining
and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."
But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the
States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the
Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can
lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect
are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or States,
against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or
revolutionary, according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the
Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as
the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the
Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to
be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it so far as
practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall
withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the
contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the
declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and
maintain itself.
In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there
shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power
confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and
places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts;
but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no
invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where
hostility to the United States, in any interior locality, shall be so
great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding
the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers
among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist
in the government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to
do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that I
deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices.
The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of
the Union. So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that
sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and
reflection. The course here indicated will be followed unless current
events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper,
and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised
according to circumstances actually existing, and with a view and a hope
of a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the restoration of
fraternal sympathies and affections.
That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the
Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither
affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To
those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak?
Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national
fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not
be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate
a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly
from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly
to are greater than all the real ones you fly from--will you risk the
commission of so fearful a mistake?
All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can
be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the
Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so
constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think,
if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of
the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a
majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional
right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution--certainly
would if such a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the
vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to
them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the
Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no
organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to
every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight
can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, express
provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be
surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does
not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The
Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the
Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.
From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies,
and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority
will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There
is no other alternative; for continuing the Government is acquiescence on
one side or the other.
If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a
precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their
own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by
such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy
a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of
the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion
sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this.
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a
new Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession?
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A
majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and
always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and
sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects
it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is
impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly
inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or
despotism in some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional
questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such
decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to
the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect
and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the
government. And, while it is obviously possible that such decision may
be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being
limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled
and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than
could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid
citizen must confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital
questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by
decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary
litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have
ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned
the government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in
this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from
which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them,
and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to
political purposes.
One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be
extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be
extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive slave clause
of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave
trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a
community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law
itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation
in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be
perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases after the separation
of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly
suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restriction, in one
section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not
be surrendered at all by the other.
Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective
sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A
husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond
the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot
do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse, either
amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then,
to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after
separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can
make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than
laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always;
and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease
fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again
upon you.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit
it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can
exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary
right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that
many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the national
Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments,
I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole
subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the
instrument itself, and I should, under existing circumstances, favor
rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act
upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems
preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people
themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions
originated by others not especially chosen for the purpose, and which
might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse.
I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution which amendment,
however, I have not seen--has passed Congress, to the effect that the
Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions
of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid
misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak
of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision
to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being
made express and irrevocable.
The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and
they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the
States. The people themselves can do this also if they choose; but the
executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer
the present government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it,
unimpaired by him, to his successors.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of
the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present
differences is either party without faith of being in the right? If the
Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your
side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice
will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American
people.
By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have
wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and
have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their
own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue
and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly,
can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject.
Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object
to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take
deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good
object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still
have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the
laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have
no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted
that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there
still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence,
patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet
forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way
all our present difficulty.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the
momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can
have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath
registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the
most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend" it.
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of
affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field
and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this
broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
REFUSAL OF SEWARD RESIGNATION
TO WM. H. SEWARD.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 4, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR:--Your note of the 2d instant, asking to withdraw your
acceptance of my invitation to take charge of the State Department, was
duly received. It is the subject of the most painful solicitude with me,
and I feel constrained to beg that you will countermand the withdrawal.
The public interest, I think, demands that you should; and my personal
feelings are deeply enlisted in the same direction. Please consider and
answer by 9 A.M. to-morrow.
Your obedient servant,
A. LINCOLN.
REPLY TO THE PENNSYLVANIA DELEGATION,
WASHINGTON, MARCH 5, 1861
Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PENNSYLVANIAN DELEGATION:--As I have so
frequently said heretofore, when I have had occasion to address the people
of the Keystone, in my visits to that State, I can now but repeat the
assurance of my gratification at the support you gave me at the election,
and at the promise of a continuation of that support which is now tendered
to me.
Allusion has been made to the hope that you entertain that you have a
President and a government. In respect to that I wish to say to you that
in the position I have assumed I wish to do more than I have ever given
reason to believe I would do. I do not wish you to believe that I assume
to be any better than others who have gone before me. I prefer rather to
have it understood that if we ever have a government on the principles we
profess, we should remember, while we exercise our opinion, that others
have also rights to the exercise of their opinions, and that we should
endeavor to allow these rights, and act in such a manner as to create no
bad feeling. I hope we have a government and a President. I hope, and
wish it to be understood, that there may be no allusion to unpleasant
differences.
We must remember that the people of all the States are entitled to all the
privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several States. We should
bear this in mind, and act in such a way as to say nothing insulting
or irritating. I would inculcate this idea, so that we may not, like
Pharisees, set ourselves up to be better than other people.
Now, my friends, my public duties are pressing to-day, and will prevent
my giving more time to you. Indeed, I should not have left them now, but I
could not well deny myself to so large and respectable a body.
REPLY TO THE MASSACHUSETTS DELEGATION,
WASHINGTON, MARCH 5, 1861
I am thankful for this renewed assurance of kind feeling and confidence,
and the support of the old Bay State, in so far as you, Mr. Chairman, have
expressed, in behalf of those whom you represent, your sanction of what
I have enunciated in my inaugural address. This is very grateful to my
feelings. The object was one of great delicacy, in presenting views at the
opening of an administration under the peculiar circumstances attending my
entrance upon the official duties connected with the Government. I studied
all the points with great anxiety, and presented them with whatever
of ability and sense of justice I could bring to bear. If it met the
approbation of our good friends in Massachusetts, I shall be exceedingly
gratified, while I hope it will meet the approbation of friends
everywhere. I am thankful for the expressions of those who have voted
with us; and like every other man of you, I like them as certainly as I do
others. As the President in the administration of the Government, I
hope to be man enough not to know one citizen of the United States from
another, nor one section from another. I shall be gratified to have good
friends of Massachusetts and others who have thus far supported me in
these national views still to support me in carrying them out.
TO SECRETARY SEWARD
EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, MARCH 7, 1861
MY DEAR SIR:--Herewith is the diplomatic address and my reply. To whom the
reply should be addressed--that is, by what title or style--I do not quite
understand, and therefore I have left it blank.
Will you please bring with you to-day the message from the War Department,
with General Scott's note upon it, which we had here yesterday? I wish to
examine the General's opinion, which I have not yet done.
Yours very truly
A. LINCOLN.
REPLY TO THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS