"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable -- a most sacred right -- a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world." (1848)
Then he did the old political Flip-Flop and decided that he wasn't going to preside over the break up of the Union even if his actions violated that "most sacred right".
Read the rest of the speech. Lincoln is talking about Texas' natural right of rebellion.
Here's more context to that passage:
If, as is probably true, Texas was exercising jurisdiction along the western bank of the Nueces, and Mexico was exercising it along the eastern bank of the Rio Grande, then neither river was the boundary; but the uninhabited country between the two, was. The extent of our teritory in that region depended, not on any treaty-fixed boundary (for no treaty had attempted it) but on revolution.The south certainly had a right of rebellion, and the north had the right to put down the rebellion. Note that Lincoln says "having the power." The south thought they did, but they didn't. And the catch with rebelling is that, if you lose, you can't bitch about your rights being violated for the next century and a half.Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,— most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the teritory as they inhabit.
More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority, was precisely the case, of the tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones.
As to the country now in question, we [allegedly] bought it of France in 1803 [France did not own it, could not sell it!!], and sold it to Spain in 1819, according to the President's statements.
After this, all Mexico, including Texas, revolutionized against Spain; and still later, Texas revolutionized against Mexico. In my view, just so far as she carried her revolution, by obtaining the actual, willing or unwilling, submission of the people, so far, the country was hers, and no farther.