"I see in the...future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

Abraham Lincoln on Nov. 21, 1864 in a letter to Col. William F. Elkins

(Ref: "The Lincoln Encyclopedia", Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)

"This is essentially a Peoples'....struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all shoulders--to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all--to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance in the race of life. [T]his is the leading object of the government for whose existence we now contend."

"That is the real issue...that will continue...when these poor tongues...shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right and wrong--throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face since the beginning of time: and will ever ciontinue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other is the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself...that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruits of their labor, for one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."

"They have invented an ingenious sophism which .... derives...its currency, from the assumption that there is some omnipotent, and sacred supremacy, pertaining to a State.... Our states have neither more, nor less power, than that reserved to them, in the Union, by the Constitution....

"Having never been states...outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of "State rights" asserting a claim to power...? Much is said about the "sovereignty" of the states; but the word, even, is not in the national Constitution; nor...in any of the State constitutions. "What is a "sovereignty," in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it "A political community, without a political superior"? .... The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status.... The Union...procured their independence, and their liberty.... [The] Union gave each of them, whatever of independence, and liberty, it has. ...."

"Unquestionably the States have the powers, and rights, reserved to them in, and by the National Constitution; but among these, surely, are not all conceivable powers...; but, at most, such only, as were known in the world, at the time, as governmental powers; as...merely administrative power.

"This relative matter of National power, and State rights, as a principle, is no other than the principle of generality and locality. Whatever concerns the whole, should be confided to the --to the general government; while, whatever concerns only the State, should be left exclusively, to the state. This is a11 there is of original principle about it."¹¹