It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic or democracy--a government of the people by the same people--can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes.
From his first message to Congress at the start of the Civil War, Lincoln frames the conflict as a test of whether a republic can survive internal threats.
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I am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper.
If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything.
He said, with a great deal of emphasis, and with an expression of countenance I shall never forget: "When a man is sincerely penitent for his misdeeds, and gives satisfactory evidence of the same, he can safely be pardoned, and there is no…
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