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Fragment on the Constitution and the Union by Abraham Lincoln

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Guest Essayist: Hadley Heath, Senior Policy Analyst at the Independent Women's Forum

Modern people argue about the importance of the Constitution asking: Should we strictly adhere to its words, or should we view it as a living document?  The Founders penned it more than 200 years ago.  Is it still relevant today?

In his short piece, “Fragment on the Constitution and the Union,” Abraham Lincoln asserts that it is not the founding document that bears the greatest importance, but the principle that undergirds it.  Namely, the principle upon which America was founded: liberty for all.  So long as we are true to this principle, we are honoring the essence of the American idea.

Lincoln explains that the United States of America could have been formed as a new nation without the principle of liberty for all.  Given the circumstances — mass immigration to the New World, Read more

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Fragment on the Constitution and the Union by Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) – Reprinted from The U.S. Constitution, A Reader, Published by Hillsdale College

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This never appeared in Lincoln’s public speeches, but it is possible that he composed it while writing his First Inaugural Address. It draws upon the King James translation of Proverbs 25:11–”A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver”–to describe the relationship between the principles of the Declaration and the purpose of the Constitution.

January 1861

All this is not the result of accident. It has a philosophical cause. Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these, are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of “Liberty to all”– Read more

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