understanding of the powers and duties of the Federal Government
relatively to the rights of the States and the people under the
Constitution than that expressed in the inaugural address.

He desires to preserve the Government, that it may be administered
for all as it was administered by the men who made it. Loyal citizens
everywhere have the right to claim this of their government, and the
government has no right to withhold or neglect it. It is not perceived
that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or any
subjugation in any just sense of those terms.

The Constitution provides, and all the States have accepted the
provision, that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in
this Union a republican form of government." But if a State may lawfully
go out of the Union, having done so it may also discard the republican
form of government; so that to prevent its going out is an indispensable
_means_ to the _end_ of maintaining the guaranty mentioned; and when an
end is lawful and obligatory the indispensable means to it are also
lawful and obligatory.

It was with the deepest regret that the Executive found the duty of
employing the war power in defense of the Government forced upon him.
He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the
Government. No compromise by public servants could in this case be a
cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular
government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an
election can only save the government from immediate destruction by
giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election. The
people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own
deliberate decisions.