- Aug 27, 2008
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I am no fane of JakeStarkey, but I think the reference was probably an allusion to some old Court dictum that maintained that the Constitution is not a suicide pact.
Let's stipulate that Abe did violate the Constitution.
It is a bad thing to violate the Constitution. On the other hand, had he not done so, that would have been the end of the United State of America.
So, at least in that instance, it was the violation of the Constitution to save the Republic that permitted both the Repbulic and the Constitutional form of government to continue.
Noting it is not the same as applauding it. But denying it doesn't really serve much purpose, either.
No, it wouldn't have been the end of the United States. The Confederate States wanted to form their own government, not take over Washington, D.C.
They wanted to continue the imperfections that compromise in 1787 had inflicted on America, slavery being the main problem.
Yet slavery was safer within the Union than without, and both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee believed that slavery would eventually collapse under its own weight.