What is the frame of government under which we live?  The answer must be, “The Constitution of the United States.”  That Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787, and under which the present government first went into operation, and twelve subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in 1789.

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution?  I suppose the “thirty-nine” who signed the original instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present government.  It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that time.  Their names being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be repeated.  I take these “thirty-nine,” for the present, as being “our fathers who framed the government under which we live.”  What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers understood “just as well, and even better, than we do now”?  It is this:  Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?

Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the negative.  This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this issue—­this question—­is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood “better than we.”

Let us now inquire whether the “thirty-nine,” or any of them, ever acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon it—­how they expressed that better understanding.

Here as will be seen, Lincoln took every important word and phrase, and showed exactly what persons and things were included under them.  Then he went ahead with his argument with the assurance that his audience and he were treading the same path.

Somewhat similar are the definitions in many cases at law, where the issue is whether the agreed facts in a case come under a certain term or not.  The Constitution of the United States provides that “direct taxes” shall be apportioned among the states in proportion to their population, but makes no such restriction on the levying of “duties,” “imposts,” and “taxes.”  When Congress establishes a new form of tax, therefore, such as the income tax or the corporation tax, the Supreme Court is pretty sure to be called on to decide under which of these large constitutional classes it falls.  In such cases as the Income Tax cases, which decided that the income tax laid in the Act of 1904 was unconstitutional, and in the Corporation Tax cases, which upheld the Act of 1909, both the arguments of counsel and the decision of the court deal wholly with the definition of the term “direct tax.”  Here the definition takes the form of an examination of previous cases which involved the term, to see whether the present case is like those that have been held to be within it, or like those which have been held to fall outside it.  From this comparison of the two sets of cases the essential characteristics of the direct tax are brought to the surface.