US Presidency
1865

The perpetuity of the Constitution brings with it the perpetuityof the States; their mutual relation makes us what we are, and in our politicalsystem their connection is indissoluble. The whole can not exist withoutthe parts, nor the parts without the whole. So long as the Constitutionof the United States endures, the States will endure. The destruction ofthe one is the destruction of the other; the preservation of the one isthe preservation of the other. I have thus explained my views of the mutual relations of the Constitutionand the States, because they unfold the principles on which I have soughtto solve the momentous questions and overcome the appalling difficultiesthat met me at the very commencement of my Administration. It has beenmy steadfast object to escape from the sway of momentary passions and toderive a healing policy from the fundamental and unchanging principlesof the Constitution. I found the States suffering from the effects of a civil war. Resistanceto the General Government appeared to have exhausted itself.