"Physically speaking, we cannot separate; 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 must remain face to face, and intercourse, amicable or hostile, must continue between them."

INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1861.

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise the constitutional right of amending, 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."

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, MARCH, 4, 1861.

"This relative matter of national power and State rights, as a principle, is no other than the principle of generality and locality. Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole-to the general government; while whatever concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State."

SPECIAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS,
MARCH 6, 1862.

last

"In the annual message, December, I thought fit to say, 'The Union must be preserved; and hence all indispensable means must be employed.' I said this not hastily, but deliberately. War has been made and continues to be an indispensable means to this end.":

EXPLANATORY MESSAGE TO CON

GRESS,

May 29th, 1862, concerning the extraordinary powers of the Executive, exercised in the interim prior to the assembling of Congress upon July 4th, 1861. "Congress had definitely adjourned. There was no time to convene them. It became necessary for me to choose whether, using only the existing means, agencies and processes, which Congress had provided, I should let the government fall at once into ruin; or whether, availing myself of the broader powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of insurrection, I would make an effort to save it, with all its blessings, for the present age and for posterity."

ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1861.

"The States have their status in

the Union and they have no other

legal status. If they break from this they can only do so against law and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty. By conquest or purchase, the Union gave each of them whatever of independence or liberty it has. The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact, it created them as States. Originally some dependent colonies made the Union, and, in turn, the Union threw off their old dependence for them and made them States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a state constitution independent of the Union."

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1861.

"And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a consti

tutional republic or democracy-a government of the people by the same people-can or cannot maintain its integrity against its domestic foes. It forces us to ask, Is there in all republics this inherent and 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 ?'"

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, DECEMBER, 1862.

"A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain duration. 'One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever.' That portion of the earth's surface which is owned and inhabited by the people of the United States, is well