Lincoln's Refutation of Secession

The debate on the constitutionality of his various actions as president: his suspension of habeas corpus, the shutting down of proslavery newspapers in the North, all rest on what was truly the most monumental constitutional issue he would face: the legality of secession and the nature of the Constitution itself. Explain the major ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence and their intellectual origins. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government... but the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all ...