who are inimical to your institution; but these men will no longer
be bound by any of the restrictions which have obtained under the
Constitution. They will not have to give consideration to the rights
of slave-owners who are fellow-citizens. Your slaves will escape as
before and you will have no measure of redress. Your indignation may
produce further wars, but the wars can but have the same result
until finally, after indefinite loss of life and of resources, the
institution will have been hammered out of existence by the
inevitable conditions of existing civilisation."

Lincoln points out further in this same address the difference between
his responsibilities and those of the Southern leaders who are
organising for war. "You," he says, "have no oath registered in Heaven
to destroy this government, while I have the most solemn oath to
preserve, direct, and defend it."

"It was not necessary," says Lincoln, "for the Constitution to
contain any provision expressly forbidding the disintegration of the
state; perpetuity and the right to maintain self-existence will be
considered as a fundamental law of all national government. If the
theory be accepted that the United States was an association or
federation of communities, the creation or continued existence of
such federation must rest upon contract; and before such contract
can be rescinded, the consent is required of both or of all of the
parties assenting to it."

He closes with the famous invocation to the fellow Americans of the
South against whom throughout the whole message there had not been one
word of bitterness or rancour: "We are not enemies but friends. We must
not be enemies. Though passion may have strained our relations, it must