purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that,
holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no
objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they
have conferred none upon him to fix the terms for the separation of the
States. The people themselves, also, can do this if they choose, but the
Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer
the present government as it came to his hands, and to transmit it
unimpaired by him to his successor. Why should there not be a patient
confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or
equal hope in the world? In our present differences is either party
without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations,
with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on
yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by
the judgment of this great tribunal, the American people. By the frame
of the Government under which we live, this same people have wisely
given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with
equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands
at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and
vigilance, no administration, by any extreme wickedness or folly, can
very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole
subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.

If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which
you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by
taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it.

Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution
unimpaired, and on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing
under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if
it would, to change either.

If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in
the dispute, there is still no single reason for precipitate action.
Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who
has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust,
in the best way, all our present difficulties.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is
the momentous issue of c