Revolution was “a moral right, when exercised for a morally justifiable cause,” wrote Lincoln. But “when exercised without such a cause revolution is no right, but simply a wicked exercise of physical power.” The South had no just cause. The event that precipitated secession was the election of a president by a constitutional majority. The “central idea” of the Union cause, said Lincoln, “is the necessity of proving that popular government is not an absurdity. We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they
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