...his oath to preserve the Constitution meant that he should use every means to preserve the nation. Was it possible to lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution [which is its organic law] ? . . . I felt that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful...

...save a limb."43 It was his belief that the oath he took to protect the Constitution, as he put it, "imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every...— that nation — of which that constitution was organic law." Wilson and the American Presidency What would develop decades after Lincoln would be...

...I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed on me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government — that nation — of...

...forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed on me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government - that nation - of which...

...Sanctifying the Constitution, he asserted to a friend, carried with it the "duty of preserving, by everv indispensable means, that government - that nation...lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution?" Preservation of the Union provided the chief prerequisite to the destruction of slavery. "I could not...

...helped confirm Lincoln's view that his oath to defend the Constitution imposed on him what he termed "the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means,...— of which that constitution was the organic law." In Lincoln's view the war powers devolved primarily upon the president. Though many Republicans contended...

...Proclamation on the constitutional grounds of military necessity. The oath he had taken as president "to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability,...constitution was the organic law." "Was it possible," he asked Hodges rhetorically, "to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution?" By initiating...

...them. Explaining his actions to a Special Session of Congress, Lincoln argued that: 1 1 understood] my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of...means, that government — that nation — of which thai constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose "Rossiter, supra note 4, 15-19. *'Lyndan...

...violated?" In 1864, with the Civil War raging on, Lincoln defended his actions more broadly still. My oath to preserve the constitution to the best of...of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government—that nation—of which that constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose...

...instrumental will. Given that the presidential vow upon his taking office, which "imposed" upon him "the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means,...nation— of which that constitution was the organic law," the war president in extremis has generalized his own condition and the circumstances of the nation...