id: "Our fathers, when they framed
the government under which we live, understood this question
just as well, and even better, than we do now."

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this
discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and
an agreed starting-point for a discussion between Republicans
and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It
simply leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding those
fathers had of the question mentioned?

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: _Cooper Union Speech_, 1860

Indicating the Plan in the Speech. In some finished and long speeches
parts of the plan are distributed to mark the divisions in the
progress of the development. The next quotation shows such an
insertion.

And now sir, against all these theories and opinions, I
maintain--

1. That the Constitution of the United States is not a
league, confederacy, or compact between the people of the
several States in their sovereign capacities; but a
government proper, founded on the adoption of the people, and
creating direct relations between itself and individuals.

2. That no State authority has power to dissolve these
relations; that nothing can dissolve them but revolution; and
that, consequently, there can be no such thing as secession
without revolution.

3. That there is a supreme law, consisting of the
Constitution of the United States, and acts of Congress
passed in pursuance of it, and treaties; and that, in cases
not capable of assuming the character of a suit in law or
equity, Congress must judge of, and finally interpret, this
supreme law so often as it has occasion to pass acts of
legislation; and in cases capable of assuming, and actually
assuming, the character of a suit, the Supreme Court of the
United States is the final interpreter.

4. That an attempt by a State to abrogate, annul, or nullify
an act of Congress, or to arrest its operation within her
limits, on the ground that, in her opinion, such law is
unconstitutional, is a direct usurpation on the just powers
of the general Government, and on the equal rights of other
States; a plain violation of the Constitution, a proceeding
essentially revolutionary in its character and tendency.

DANIEL WEBSTER: _The Constitution Not a Compact
between Sovereign States_, 1833

Such a stat