The great party
that had elected him, unalterably determined against its extension, was
nevertheless pledged not to interfere with its continuance in the States
where it already existed. Of course, when new regions were forever
closed against it, from its very nature it must have begun to shrink and
to dwindle; and probably gradual and compensated emancipation, which
appealed very strongly to the new President's sense of justice and
expediency, would, in the progress of time, by a reversion to the ideas
of the founders of the Republic, have found a safe outlet for both
masters and slaves. But whom the gods wish to destroy they first make
mad, and when seven States, afterwards increased to eleven, openly
seceded from the Union, when they declared and began the war upon the
nation, and challenged its mighty power to the desperate and protracted
struggle for its life, and for the maintenance of its authority as a
nation over its territory, they gave to Lincoln and to freedom the
sublime opportunity of history.
In his first inaugural address, when as yet not a drop of precious blood
had been shed, while he held out to them the olive branch in one hand, in
the other he presented the guarantees of the Constitution, and after
reciting the emphatic resolution of the convention that nominated him,
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," he reiterated this sentiment, and declared,
with no mental reservation, "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.
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