Abraham Lincoln Quotes
No State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union;
Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States (Republican, IL), First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Fortunately he was wrong, but the threat of a breakup of the American Union intimidated most members of Congress to avoid anything that would offend a state or group of states. Thus slavery became more and more entrenched till it exploded into the Civil War. At the time the issues of contention included the fact that Louisiana was primarily Roman Catholic and ALL other states were majority Protestant. The territory functioned under French Law—the Napoleonic Code, while all the other states operated under the English Common Law (even today this is so), and there was concern with the French and Creole language and whether the Creoles would fit into American Culture.
At the time his Vice President, John C. Calhoun, was expounding a theory of “nullification” by which the states could supersede and nullify federal law in their states. When Jackson finished his toast, it was Calhoun’s turn (See {635896}.) His toast supported the States’ Rights position over the federal government. In those days Presidents and Vice President’s were often political enemies or of opposite parties. The President’s advisors thought that his toast might be misinterpreted. So when they gave the toast to the press as “The Federal Union: It must be preserved.” That was the form in which the press reported the President’s toast and for many years that was the version most quoted even though it was never delivered that way. However Jackson was responsible for both versions.
It would be almost 30 years until Jackson would have been proved correct and the Civil War had begun.
There was an active secession movement by the Western States. New Orleans was then controlled by the Spanish who would not allow U.S. goods access to export from New Orleans. Some of the wealthier Western citizens thought that they would fare better as a vassal state of Spain rather than part of the newly formed United States. Jefferson, did not overreact and the movement for secession faded.
Bragg and other Southerner leaders had an unusual concept of equality. Ever since the original Constitution, Northerner’s votes counted for themselves only while a single Southerner’s vote counted for all his slaves as well. So the individual Southerner always had more political power than his Northern counterpart. However, this notion of equality reached it’s acme when it came to the new territories. The Southern argument was that Southerners could not equally prosper in the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska if they could not bring their slaves to work the land. The thought that Southerners were equally able to personally work the new lands or pay labor seems to never have occurred to them. If Northerners could prosper that way then Southerners should be equally able to do so also. However, many Southern whites simply could not conceive of a “gentleman” working in the fields. Therefore they would not be equally able to prosper in the new territories.
Jackson was reacting to the claimed right of South Carolina to nullify Federal tariffs and other Federal laws.
Jackson makes the case against the South Carolina argument for nullification. In the related quote, he makes his threat which was very successful in ending the notion of “nullification”. The extensive quotation is given as it summarizes the entire issue that was one of the crises of early America.
Abraham Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
