...and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope for precedent, I now enter upon the same task, for the brief constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulties. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted....

...confronting the crisis he inherited on assuming the presidency, Lincoln could be certain of one thing: "I hold that in contemplation of universal law, and...Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual." To have maintained anything less would have betrayed his legal heritage.21 Lincoln's practice of law,...

...President Lincoln led the nation through a Civil War to confirm this principle. As Lincoln declared, "the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental laws of all national governments." IV Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln 264 (RP Easier, ed. 1953)....

...President Lincoln led the nation through a Civil War to confirm this principle. As Lincoln declared, "the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental laws of all national governments." "IV Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln," 264 (RP Easier, ed., 1953)....

...President Lincoln led the nation through a Civil War to confirm this principle. As Lincoln declared, "the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental laws of all national governments." "IV Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln," 264 (RP Easier, ed., 1953)....

...secession movement. Lincoln's position was clearly stated in his first inaugural address, March 4, 1861. I hold that in contemplation of universal law and...Constitution the Union of these states Is perpetual . . . Tha> Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association...

...President Lincoln led the nation through a Civil War to confirm this principle. As Lincoln declared, "the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental laws of all national governments." IV Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln 264 (RP Easier, ed. 1953)'...

...concerns have a central place in the First Inaugural Address more than twenty years later (1v, 262-271). "I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States Abraham Lincoln, by an unknown photographer at Mathew Brady's gallery, in Washington DC, about 1862....

...came" (PW, II, 501). In his first inaugural address, Lincoln asserted the perpetuity of the Union: "I hold that in contemplation of universal law, and...Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual." The very idea of secession was, he declared, "the essence of anarchy."' In a notebook of the time,...

...posited the possibility of "destruction of the Union" (73). The second ended with this affirmation: I hold that in contemplation of universal law and...Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental laws of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision...