ar to assert and maintain the
sovereignty of--"We, the People."

But how was it to be proved that this was, in fact, the true issue of
the moment? Here, between the lines of the first message, Lincoln's
deepest feelings are to be glimpsed. Out of the discovery that Virginia
honestly believed herself a sovereign power, he had developed in himself
a deep, slow-burning fervor that probably did much toward fusing him
into the great Lincoln of history. But why? What was there in that
idea which should strike so deep? Why was it not merely one view in a
permissible disagreement over the interpretation of the Constitution?
Why did the cause of the people inspire its champion to regard the
doctrine of State sovereignty as anti-christ? Lincoln has not revealed
himself on these points in so many words. But he has revealed himself
plainly enough by implication.

The clue is in that element of internationalism which lay at the back of
his mind. There must be no misunderstanding of this element. It was not
pointing along the way of the modern "international." Lincoln would have
fought Bolshevism to the death. Side by side with his assertion of the
sanctity of the international bond of labor, stands his assertion of
a sacred right in property and that capital is a necessity.(5) His
internationalism was ethical, not opportunistic. It grew, as all
his ideas grew, not out of a theorem, not from a constitutional
interpretation, but from his overpowering commiseration for the mass
of mankind. It was a practical matter. Here were poor people to be
assisted, to be enriched in their estate, to be enlarged in spirit. The
mode of reaching the result was not the thing. Any mode, all sorts of
modes, might be used. What counted was the purpose to work relief, and
the willingness to throw overboard whatever it might be that tended to
defeat the purpose. His internationalism was but a denial of "my country
right or wrong." There can be little doubt that, in last resort, he
would have repudiated his country rather than go along with it in
opposition to what he regarded as the true purpose of government. And
that was, to advance the welfare of the mass of mankind.

He thought upon this subject in the same manner in which he thought as
a lawyer, sweeping aside everything but what seemed to him the ethical
reality at the heart of the case. For him the "right" of a State to do
this or that was a constitutional question only so long as it did not
cros