The Life Story of Abraham Lincoln -15

The Life Story of Abraham Lincoln -15

It behooved a clear-headed man in his position not to yield so far to an
honest indignation against the brokers of treason in the
North as to lose sight of the materials for misleading which
were their stock in trade, and to forget that it is not the
falsehood of sophistry which is to be feared, but the grain
of truth mingled with it to make it specious,--that it is not
the knavery of the leaders so much as the honesty of the
followers they may seduce, that gives them power for evil.
It was especially his duty to do nothing which might help the
people to forget the true cause of the war in fruitless
disputes about its inevitable consequences. The doctrine of
State rights can be so handled by an adroit demagogue as
easily to confound the distinction between liberty and
lawlessness in the minds of ignorant persons, accustomed
always to be influenced by the sound of certain words, rather
than to reflect upon the principles which give them meaning.
For, though Secession involves the manifest absurdity of
denying to the State the right of making war against any
foreign power while permitting it against the United States;
though it supposes a compact of mutual concessions and
guaranties among States without any arbiter in case of
dissension; though it contradicts common-sense in assuming
that the men who framed our government did not know what they
meant when they substituted Union for confederation; though
it falsifies history, which shows that the main opposition to
the adoption of the Constitution was based on the argument
that it did not allow that independence in the several States
which alone would justify them in seceding;--yet, as slavery
was universally admitted to be a reserved right, an inference
could be drawn from any direct attack upon it (though only in
self- defence) to a natural right of resistance, logical
enough to satisfy minds untrained to detect fallacy, as the
majority of men always are, and now too much disturbed by the
disorder of the times, to consider that the order of events
had any legitimate bearing on the argument.