ion 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 referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the
States. The people themselves can do this if also 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 of 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 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 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 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 being yourselves the