But to answer your 192, please read post 186.
# 186 has nothing to do with what Lincoln said on 7/4/61. But it is not your purpose to be fair, is it?
I'll get to your #186 ASAP.
Walt
Lincoln's speech was to a special session of Congress - this "extra" session of the 37th Congress was called by Lincoln via executive Proclamation issued on 15 Apr 1861 (he also asked the states for 75,000 men). Lincoln was sworn as President 4 Apr 1861, long after the formation of the Confederacy. If preserving the Union at all costs was so important, then why didn't outgoing President Buchanan attempt to recapture the South?
Immediately after the South defended Ft Sumter from resupply, Lincoln calls for the special session. If it was that important to preserve the Union, why delay the convening of Congress by nearly three months? Just days after one horse was killed Lincoln calls for a blockade of Southern ports.
In his speech Lincoln calls the secession a rebellion. Defending a Fort several hundred miles away could hardly be considered a rebellion. After their defense of Ft Sumter, the South simply went about it's business. They did not attack the North. What states did the South invade? None. Secession is overlooked or ignored by Lincoln because he cannot refute it, and only by ignoring secession as a Constitutional or inalienable right can Lincoln attempt to find Constitutional grounds for his actions. Lincoln ignores the fact that once 9 states had ratified the Constitution then a new government was created by a secession of those 9 states from the original 13. So at that point in time the remaining states were not part of the Union.
But New York, Rhode Island et al understood the right of secession, and never lifted a finger against the seceding states. They were also faced with the possibility that not all the states would ratify (read the ratification debates, they certainly assumed that not all thirteen states would ratify the Constitution.) And even though it had been ratified, the Constitution did not give the President the power to force the new government onto that states that had not ratified - it had no force on states that were not part of the Union.
By late 1789, two states (North Carolina and Rhode Island) had failed to ratify the original Constitution (pre Bill of Rights) - the version that guaranteed a republican form of government? To get them to join Madison had to submit the Bill of Rights for ratification as well. Of course, the 2nd, 9th and 10th Amendments are in the BoR, and I handled that in my post 186. The right of secession was guaranteed.
So Lincoln attempts to justify military action to preserve the Union with another strategy,
"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."
So to justify his military actions Lincoln claims that the seceding states no longer have a "republican" form of government. The fact is the Southern states virtually duplicated the government they had just left. They did make a few additions and changes, but it's laughable to think that it wasn't a "republican" form of government. But by claiming that the seceding states no longer have a "republican" form of government, he is recognizing that they have seceded, and once they are no longer part of the Union they are no longer bound by the Constitution, thus making Lincoln the invader. If he denies that they have seceded, they are still part of the Union, they still have a "republican" form of government, and Lincoln is again left without a Constitutional reason for invasion.
Only by ignoring the previous two secessions performed by the several states, only by denying the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, only by denying the Bill of Rights could Lincoln even have a chance of being correct. He was still wrong.