“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; 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."(4) Not a war over slavery, not a war to preserve a constitutional system, but a war to assert and maintain the sovereignty of—­“We, the People.”

But how was it to be proved that this was, in fact, the true issue of the moment?  Here, between the lines of the first message, Lincoln’s deepest feelings are to be glimpsed.  Out of the discovery that Virginia honestly believed herself a sovereign power, he had developed in himself a deep, slow-burning fervor that probably did much toward fusing him into the great Lincoln of history.  But why?  What was there in that idea which should strike so deep?  Why was it not merely one view in a permissible disagreement over the interpretation of the Constitution?  Why did the cause of the people inspire its champion to regard the doctrine of State sovereignty as anti-christ?  Lincoln has not revealed himself on these points in so many words.  But he has revealed himself plainly enough by implication.

The clue is in that element of internationalism which lay at the back of his mind.  There must be no misunderstanding of this element.  It was not pointing along the way of the modern “international.”  Lincoln would have fought Bolshevism to the death.  Side by side with his assertion of the sanctity of the international bond of labor, stands his assertion of a sacred right in property and that capital is a necessity.(5) His internationalism was ethical, not opportunistic.  It grew, as all his ideas grew, not out of a theorem, not from a constitutional interpretation, but from his overpowering commiseration for the mass of mankind.  It was a practical matter.  Here were poor people to be assisted, to be enriched in their estate, to be enlarged in spirit.  The mode of reaching the result was not the thing.  Any mode, all sorts of modes, might be used.  What counted was the purpose to work relief, and the willingness to throw overboard whatever it might be that tended to defeat the purpose.  His internationalism was but a denial of “my country right or wrong.”  There can be little doubt that, in last resort, he would have repudiated his country rather than go along with it in opposition to what he regarded as the true purpose of government.  And that was, to advance the welfare of the mass of mankind.