He had the sworn duty to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
He had the sworn duty to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
And how would the dissolution of the Nation have fufilled this charge? The Nation is a construct of the Constitution, formed by it when the States ratified it. Any attempt to sunder the Nation may clearly be seen as an attack on that Constitution.
"In his final message to Congress, on December 3, 1860, James Buchanan surprised some of his southern allies with a firm denial of the right of secession. The Union was not "a mere voluntary association of states, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties," said Buchanan. "We the People" had adopted the Constitution to form "a more perfect Union" than the one existing under the Articles of Confederation, which had stated that "the Union shall be perpetual." The framers of the National Government "never intended to implant in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction, nor were they guilty of the absurdity of providing for its own dissolution." State Sovereignty was NOT superior to national sovereignty, Buchanan insisted. The Constitution bestowed the highest attributes of sovereignty exclusively on the federal government: national defense; foreign policy; regulation of foreign and interstate commerece; coinage of money. "This Constitution," stated the document, and the laws of the United States...shall be the supreme law of the land...anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
"BattleCry of Freedom", McPherson, p. 246
Walt
Who said the following? Lincoln or Clement Vallandingham?
And now this warfare is made on me because I would not surrender my connections of duty, because I would not abandon my constituency, and receive the orders of the executive authorities how I should vote in the Senate of the United States. I hold that an attempt to control the Senate on the part of the Executive is subversive of the principles of our constitution. The Executive department is independent of the Senate, and the Senate is independent of the President. In matters of legislation the President has a veto on the action of the Senate, and in appointments and treaties the Senate has a veto on the President. He has no more right to tell me how I shall vote on his appointments than I have to tell him whether he shall veto or approve a bill that the Senate has passed. Whenever you recognize the right of the Executive to say to a Senator, ''do this, or I will take off the heads of your friends,'' you convert this government from a republic into a despotism. Whenever you recognize the right of a President to say to a member of Congress, ''vote as I tell you, or I will bring a power to bear against you at home which will crush you,'' you destroy the independence of the representative, and convert him into a tool of Executive power. I resisted this invasion of the constitutional rights of a Senator, and I intend to resist it as long as I have a voice to speak, or a vote to give."Abraham Lincoln, "Seventh and Last Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Alton, Illinois", 15 Oct 1858, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler, ed, Vol. III, pp. 292-293.