First and second inaugural addresses/message, July 5, 1861/proclamation, January 1, 1863/Gettysburg address, November 19, 1863 Quotes

“[T]he candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically re-signed their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”
― Abraham Lincoln, First and second inaugural addresses/message, July 5, 1861/proclamation, January 1, 1863/Gettysburg address, November 19, 1863