Lincoln and the Constitution: A Unionist for the Sake of Liberty LUCAS E. MOREL Ever true to Liberty, the Union, and the Constitution—true to Liberty, not selfishly, but upon principle—not for special classes of men, but for all men; true to the Union and the Constitution, as the best means to advance that liberty. Abraham Lincoln to a Committee of German Republicans, June 30, 1858 1 A perennial question regarding Lincoln’s understanding of the federal Constitution is whether preserving the American Union was more important to him than promoting liberty for all. Lincoln took up the question of lib- erty when he addressed a sanitary fair (the Women’s Central Association of Relief) in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 18, 1864. He said, The world has never had a good def- inition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for lib- erty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his la- bor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but in- compatable [sic] things, called by the same name—liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the re- spective parties, called by two differ- ent and incompatable names—liberty and tyranny. 2 So what does it mean to be for liberty? For Southerners who rejected Lincoln as President and attempted to form a government separate from the American Union, liberty meant the right of a slaveholder to deprive a black man of his freedom simply on the basis of race. Lin- coln reminded Americans that this policy of whites doing just what they please with black slaves, “being responsible to God alone,” bore JOURNAL OF S UPREME C OURT H ISTORY