Managing America: Interviews with President Abraham Lincoln on his thoughts about the Constitution and the Rights of Citizens, the Rights of States, and the Rights of the Federal Union

The Constitutional facts with which I shall deal with in this interview are familiar - however there is something new in the general use I shall make of them.

If there shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the inferences in these interviews are at the discretion of the reader.

Mister President: Your thoughts about the Constitution?

President Lincoln: “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.”

Mister President: In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New-York Times, Senator Douglas said: “Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live ?, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now.” Your thoughts about his statement?

President Lincoln: “I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas.”

“It simply leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?”

“What is the frame of government under which we live?”

“The answer must be, "The Constitution of the United States." That Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787, and under which the present government first went into operation, and twelve subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in 1789.”

“Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution?”

 “I suppose the "thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present government. It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that time.”

“Their names, being familiar to nearly all and accessible to quite all, need not now be repeated.”

“I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, as being "our fathers who framed the government under which we live."

“What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers understood "just as well, and even better, than we do now"?  

Mister President: The proper division of Federal authority in the Constitution, between the Executive branch and the legislative branch must come into play regarding the validity of such a law, how do you explain this?

President Lincoln: “Again, George Washington, another of the "thirty-nine," was then President of the United States, and as such approved and signed the bill, thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory.”

“No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution, North Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now constituting the State of Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia ceded that which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a condition by the ceding States that the Federal Government should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country.”

“Besides this, slavery was then actually in the ceded country. Under these circumstances, Congress, on taking charge of these countries, did not absolutely prohibit slavery within them. But they did interfere with it - take control of it - even there, to a certain extent."

Mister President: In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the convention was in session framing it, the idea of amendments came before the Congress of the Confederation; and within knowledge of the "thirty-nine" who afterward signed the Constitution, what are your thoughts regarding amendments?

President Lincoln: “The constitutional amendments were introduced before, and passed after, the act enforcing the ordinance of '87; so that, during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the ordinance, the constitutional amendments were also pending.”

“The seventy-six members of that Congress, including sixteen of the framers of the original Constitution, as before stated, were preeminently our fathers who framed that part of "the government under which we live" which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal Government to control slavery in the Federal Territories.”

“Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to affirm that the two things which that Congress deliberately framed, and carried to maturity at the same time, are absolutely inconsistent with each other?”

“And does not such affirmation become impudently absurd when coupled with the other affirmation, from the same mouth, that those who did the two things alleged to be inconsistent, understood whether they really were inconsistent better than we-better than he who affirms that they are inconsistent?”

“It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the original Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Congress which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the govern-ment under which we live."”

“And so assuming, I defy any man to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that, in his understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitu-tion, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories.”

“I go a step further. I defy anyone to show that any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the present century, declare that, in his understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories.”

Mister President: Than I assume the Federal government has no Constitutional control over States rights.

President Lincoln: “Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did.”

“To do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience-to reject all progress, all improvement.”

“What I do say is that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we.”

Mister President: Is it your idea to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizen of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"?

President Lincoln: “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.”

Mister President: What is the rightful authority of the people?

President Lincoln: “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 desir-ous 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 successor.”

Mister President: As you mentioned, 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?

President Lincoln: “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 judg-ment 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.”

Mister President: In your opinion what right do people have to revolutionize or replace their present government?

President Lincoln: “Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.”

“This is a most valuable a most sacred right a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it.”

“Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”

“More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with or near about them, who may oppose this movement.”

President Lincoln added: “Such minority was precisely the case of the old Tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones.”

Mr. Martin Chekel, a noted international businessman and author of the thought provoking “Managing America” six book series and the retrospective eight book series “The Diary of American Foreign Policy 1938 – 1945” that laid the foundation for US foreign policy the past seventy-four years.