...emergency, Abraham Lincoln claimed unprecedented power based on the need to preserve the nation: * * * my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of...every indispensable means, that government— that nation—of which that Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet...

...I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability imposed on me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government — that nation, of which...

...Similarly. Abraham Lincoln, late in his presidency, offered this view. ... my oath to preserve Ihe Constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon...of which that Constitution was the organic law. Was n possible to lose Ihe nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb must...

...by the vital mission to identify, describe, and help thwart external threats to the United States. "Was it possible to lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution?" asked Lincoln, and the question resonates well in the halls of the CIA today. Yet if the peril to the...

...on me the duty of preserving by everv indispensable means that government, that nation, of which the Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible...lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution? ... I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful by becoming indispensable...

...Lincoln explained his case toward the end of the war, his oath to preserve the Constitution imposed the "duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government — that nation — of which the constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the Constitution?"14...

...I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the constitution...lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? ... I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable...

...save a limb."58 It was his belief that the oath he took to protect the Constitution, as he put it, "imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every...— that nation — of which that constitution was organic law." Woodrow Wilson and the American Presidency What would develop decades after Lincoln would...

...was at the heart of Lincoln's willingness to break with forms of the Constitution to save the Union. "[M]y oath to preserve the constitution to the best...— of which that constitution was the organic law. Wjs it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb...

...guarantor of republicanism. Sanctifying the Constitution, he asserted to a friend, carried with it the "duty of preserving, by every indispensable means,...lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution?" Preservation of the Union provided the chief prerequisite to the destruction of slavery. "I could not...