Lincoln on Democracy

"THE DECISION Is TO BE MADE"

282 LINCOLN ON DEMOCRACY "THE DECISION Is TO BE MADE" From a Response to Resolutions from Ohio Democrats [JUNE 29, 1863] This is part of Lincoln's reply to an Ohio delegation which arrived in Washington to lodge yet anotherprotest against the Vallandigham arrest. You ask, in substance, whether I really claim that I may override all the guarrantied rights of individuals, on the plea of conserving the public safety-when I may choose to say the public safety requires it. This question, divested of the phraseology calculated to represent me as struggling for an arbitrary personal prerogative, is either simply a question who shall decide, or an affirmation that nobody shall decide, what the public safety does require, in cases of Rebellion or invasion. The constitution contemplates the question as likely to occur for decision , but it does not expressly declare who is to decide it. By necessary implication, when Rebellion or Invasion comes, the decision is to be made, from time to time; and I think the man whom, for the time, the people have, under the constitution, made the commander-in-chief, of their Army and Navy, is the man who holds the power, and bears the responsibility of making it. If he uses the power justly, the same people will probably justify him; if he abuses it, he is in their hands, to be dealt with by all the modes they have reserved to themselves in the constitution . ...