He desires to preserve the Government, that it may be administered for all as it was administered by the men who made it.  Loyal citizens everywhere have the right to claim this of their government, and the government has no right to withhold or neglect it.  It is not perceived that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or any subjugation in any just sense of those terms.

The Constitution provides, and all the States have accepted the provision, that “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.”  But if a State may lawfully go out of the Union, having done so it may also discard the republican form of government; so that to prevent its going out is an indispensable means to the end of maintaining the guaranty mentioned; and when an end is lawful and obligatory the indispensable means to it are also lawful and obligatory.

It was with the deepest regret that the Executive found the duty of employing the war power in defense of the Government forced upon him.  He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the Government.  No compromise by public servants could in this case be a cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election.  The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.

As a private citizen the Executive could not have consented that these institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as these free people had confided to him.  He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of his own life, in what might follow.  In full view of his great responsibility he has so far done what he has deemed his duty.  You will now, according to your own judgment, perform yours.  He sincerely hopes that your views and your action may so accord with his as to assure all faithful citizens who have been disturbed in their rights of a certain and speedy restoration to them under the Constitution and the laws.

And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, July 11, 1861.

To the House of Representatives: 

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 9th instant, requesting a copy of correspondence upon the subject of the incorporation of the Dominican Republic with the Spanish Monarchy, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.