.. the question
whether a Constitutional Republic or Democracy, a government of the
people by the same people, can or cannot maintain its territorial
integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question
whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control the
administration according to the organic law in any case, can always,
upon the pretenses made in this case, or any other pretenses, or
arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government, and thus
practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us
to ask: Is there in all Republics this inherent fatal weakness? Must a
government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its own
people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?" The Constitution of
the Confederacy was a paraphrase with convenient adaptations of the
Constitution of the United States. A significant one of these
adaptations was the striking out of the first three words, "We, the
people," and the substitution of the words, "We, the deputies of the
sovereign and independent States." "Why," said Mr. Lincoln, "why this
deliberate pressing out of view the rights of men and the authority of
the people? This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the
Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and
substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition
of men .
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