are
desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make
no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful
authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in
either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I
should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a
fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it.... The
Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and
they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation
of the States. The people themselves can do this also, 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....
By the frame of the Government under which we live, the 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 of 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 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 still is no
single good 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 difficulty.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine,
is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail
you. You can have no conflict without