Lincoln e o Direito Natural

(Straussian way... que estabeleceu o princípio dos "significados escondidos" ou será "sabe que o actor histórico mente quando diz X ou Y"?

* July 17, 1858: "What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races."

* Aug. 21, 1858."I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races (...) I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position." And, "Free them [slaves] and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this. We cannot, then, make them equals."

* Sept. 18, 1858:"I will to the very last stand by the law of this state, which forbids the marrying of white people with Negroes."

* In his First Inaugural Lincoln promised to invade any state that failed to collect "the duties and imposts," and he kept his promise.

* April 19, 1861, the reason Lincoln gave for his naval blockade of the Southern ports was that "the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually executed" in the states that had seceded.

* Congress, July 22, 1861: that the purpose of the war was not "interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states" (i.e., slavery), but to preserve the Union "with the rights of the several states unimpaired."

* Aug. 22, 1862: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it" Fonte