All its
powers are there expressed, defined, and limited. It was only to that
instrument Mr. Lincoln as President should have gone to learn his
duties. That was the chart which he had just solemnly pledged himself to
the country faithfully to follow. He soon deviated widely from it--and
fatally erroneous was his course. The administration of the affairs of a
great people, at a most perilous period, is decided by the answer which
it is assumed "the whole family of man" would give to a supposed
condition of human affairs which did not exist and which could not
exist. This is the ground upon which the rectitude of his cause was
placed. He says, "No choice was left but to call out the war power of
the Government, and so to resist force employed for its destruction by
force for its preservation."
"Here," he says, "no choice was left but to call out the war power of
the Government." For what purpose must he call out this war power? He
answers, by saying, "and so to resist force employed for its destruction
by force for its preservation." But this which he asserts is not a fact.
There was no "force employed for its destruction." Let the reader turn
to the record of the facts in Part III of this work, and peruse the
fruitless efforts for peace which were made by us, and which Mr. Lincoln
did not deign to notice. The assertion is not only incorrect, in stating
that force was employed by us, but also in declaring that it was for the
destruction of the Government of the United States.
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