First published: Evening Star Washington, District of Columbia · Saturday, June 05, 1926

Oration Regarded Third Best

Lincoln and the Constitution

By Helen Bylund, Wadleigh High School, New York City

The Declaration of Independence stands for the just and reasonable rights of a free people. The Constitution is a guarantee for the fulfillment and securing of these rights to a nation. The United States of America was the first brave and clear-sighted nation ever to embark on a political sea in such a ship as the Constitution.

And in spite of the vicissitudes through which our country has passed; in spite of her present difference from the little nation of 1789; in spite of the apparent simplicity of that document—the Constitution still is today the most stalwart and important institution in the United States.

To form a more perfect Union, to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquillity, to provide for the common defense, to promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity—these are the aims that promoted the shaping of our Constitution. And it is by this criterion of the American people that we honor our Constitution, revere the men who formed it, and esteem the men who have upheld it.

To every great leader of our Government has come a struggle for the Constitution.

The most outstanding and arduous struggle any American has ever had for this Constitution is that of Abraham Lincoln—the man who crossed the stage at the country’s most critical moment; the man to whom was given the lead in the great drama of the Civil War; the misjudged hero who gave his heart, body, and soul to his love—America.

There is not a more sublime or inspiring personality in history than Abraham Lincoln. He stands out as the great peace-lover plunged into the horrors of a war where man killed his brother. He is known as the protector of the negro, the promoter of equality, the preserver of the Union; and besides all that, he is universally recognized as one of the noblest characters in the world.

This is the man to whom was given the Constitution to guard in the days of the nation’s great crisis.

Lincoln Takes Office

When Lincoln came into office the condition of our nation was so grave that any but a strong man would have been stunned. The country was divided. A Confederacy that had broken away from the Constitution was established in the South with Jefferson Davis at its head. Buchanan, Lincoln’s predecessor, had all but recognized the South as a nation.

The slave question lay before the country like an open wound—ready to bleed when touched, and seemingly unhealable.

The eyes of the world were on Lincoln. The people of his own country watched him with open curiosity, quick to criticize, unwilling to trust, and eager to attack their leader at a moment’s notice. The situation was like the tense instant when the angered bull in the arena paws the ground and eyes the waving red cape of the matador before rushing on to kill or be killed.

No wonder Lincoln said:

“A duty devolves on me which is greater than that which has devolved on any man since the days of Washington.”

And it was true. No other President had ever faced the peculiar difficulties that he was called to face. To him was given the task of solving the problem that had been the main issue before the Government since the days of the old Confederation—the question of Nation versus State.

It is true that those before him had laid the groundwork for his great decision which was to alter all future history of the United States. But Lincoln could look to no definite precedent; the Constitution gave him no direction.

It was through himself that he achieved victory—through his own sense of right and wrong.

Lincoln and Constitutional Power

Thus we find that Lincoln disregarded certain constitutional checks upon a President. He realized that it was wiser to sacrifice a part to save the whole. In justifying his actions he said:

“Life and limb must be protected. A limb may be amputated to save a life, but a life is never given to save a limb. I feel that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become absolutely indispensable to the preservation of the Union. I have in every case thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union as the primary object of the contest on our part.”

But what Lincoln did to gain his ends is not the paramount issue. It is what he did through his means. It is his victory for the Constitution, wrung out of the blood and tears of a divided nation. It is the preservation of unity which remains today the supreme ideal of the land.

Knowing as we do Lincoln’s purpose to save the Union, we can understand his constitutional theory on slavery. In the midst of Civil War, he wrote to Horace Greeley:

“I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution. If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it. If I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because it helps to save the Union.”

Lincoln’s Lasting Legacy

It is not what Lincoln did directly to the Constitution. It is what he did for the nation to preserve the Constitution.

His direct support for the Thirteenth Amendment and his indirect influence on the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments gave at last “the blessings of liberty” to all. The Civil War—won through the emancipation of slaves—settled finally and forever that the Federal Government was supreme, and was so through the Constitution.

Abraham Lincoln, more than any other man, succeeded in giving to the Constitution its rightful place—the place that Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Marshall strove to secure for it.

“To save the Union” was Lincoln’s creed—his ideal.

Putting all other things aside, closing his heart to all voices of criticism, he walked onward with a firm step toward what his heart and soul told him was right.

He reminds one of the immortal lines of Walt Whitman:

“Dearest thou now, O soul, walk out toward the unknown Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow.”

If you want, I can also:

✅ format this into a 1920s newspaper-style PDF ✅ prepare a HAL-1776 narrated script ✅ add this to your Patriot Echoes archive in styled HTML

Just say the word!