mediately answer to the will of the people. On the contrary, he fully realized that the strength of the government and its crowning glory was in the fact that the Constitution set up barriers against the complete sweeping away of the government, and particularly the judicial branch, under the heat of popular excitement, properly or improperly aroused.

His letter in reply to Horace Greeley's attack on him in 1862, shows that, eager as he was to see "all men everywhere free," he never, even amid the strain of war, lost sight of the paramount importance of the Union. and the Constitution. He was only willing to violate a constitutional right of citizens of a state when he had to choose between that course and the collapse of the Union at the hands of those whom he regarded as its archenemies.

To Greeley he wrote: "I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be to 'the Union as it was.' If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could, at the same time, save slavery, I

do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could, at the same time, destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or to destroy slavery."

Lincoln's reconstruction proclamation, issued December 8, 1863, throws a strong light on his scrupulous care to preserve the constitutional balance of power between the various branches of the government, even when the executive authority was vastly increased under the President's war powers. The proclamation is particularly noteworthy because of the emphasis which it places upon the importance of a republican form of government in every state.

"Whereas in the Constitution it is provided that the President," the document begins, going on to outline the scope of the power of pardon delegated under the instrument to the chief executive. It then states the oath that those coming under its provisions and wishing to avail themselves of the same shall take. They are: First, "to defend the

Constitution of the United States," and secondly, "the Union existing thereunder."

The dividing line between the governmental departments is again emphasized in the provision that the oath shall contain a pledge to "abide by all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, in so far as they are not repealed, modified or held void by Congress or by decrees of the Supreme Court."

Upon such compliance, the proclamation. continues, each state would receive the benefit of the constitutional provision which declares that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government."

"It may be proper," the President continues, as if anxious to stamp in the minds of the people the importance of the constitutional questions involved, "further to add that whether the members sent to Congress from any state shall be admitted to seats, constitutionally rests exclusively with the respective houses, and not to any extent with the executive."

His object in this was just as plain as that of Washington in setting the example of forbearance from using military power or prestige to override a representative, constitutional form of government. Washington could have continued in power as long as he lived, and could have completely warped the governmental system had he desired to do so while it was in its formative stage. Lincoln could have used his influence and his vastly increased war-time authority to seriously disturb the constitutionally established equilibrium between the branches of government. But he was intent upon saving the government, not only from enemies in the field, but from its friends-even from his own ambition.

CHAPTER XI

THE FRUITS

HE form of government framed by the

TH

Constitutional Convention and rounded out by Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Marshall, Webster, Lincoln and those who worked under their inspiration, gives an excellent account of itself when judged by the results which it has accomplished.

No world power of the present time has a government which reaches back without a break as far as ours does. To put it another way, no other powerful nation of today has escaped one or more complete changes in its governmental system since our Republic came into existence. Glance for a moment at the foremost nations of the modern world: England, Japan, France, Germany, Russia, Austria, Italy and the United States.

Of these England and Japan are the only ones which have even a semblance of the governmental system under which they operated 130 years ago. In England the revolution of less than a century ago, though bloodless, was