Maryland constitutional questions after Fort Sumter

[David Lockmiller]

(08-21-2020 01:14 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Thanks, David. I think preserving the Union was more important to the President than the Constitution.

Roger, Doris Kearns Goodwin agrees with you. In her book Team of Rivals at page 357, she writes:

In his Farewell Address, George Washington had given voice to this transcendent idea of Union. "It is of infinite moment," George Washington said, "that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity." Foreseeing the potential for dissension, Washington advised vigilance against "the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts." [emphasis added]

It was this mystical idea of popular government and democracy that propelled [President] Abraham Lincoln to call forth the thousands of soldiers who would rise up to defend the sacred Union created by the Founding Fathers.