No Pollution In The Constitution

If we had a penny every time a politician mentioned the Constitution in a speech, we'd probably be living on our own private island by now. Sadly, we missed that investment opportunity back in 1789. Live and learn.

Lincoln brings up the Constitution precisely because it's such a well-known document and symbol of the United States. He pays special attention to the recent legislation of the Dred Scott decision and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. How were people using this extremely important, emblematic document to handle the slavery question?

For instance, after Justice Taney issued the Dred Scott decision:

The people were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough, now, it was an exactly fitted niche for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in and declare the perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. (59-61)

Lincoln's talking about how the idea of popular sovereignty, as embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, opened the door for the prohibition on congressional regulation of slavery. By leaving the decision vaguely reliant to the Constitution, the Supreme Court was able to come in and change the rules.

He doesn't stop there:

It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, the people of a State as well as Territory, were to be left 'perfectly free' 'subject only to the Constitution.' Why mention a State?...Certainly the people of a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely territorial law?... While the opinion of the Court…in the Dred Scott case…expressly declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial legislature to exclude slavery from any United States territory, they all omit to say whether or not the same Constitution permits a state, or the people of a State, to exclude it. (74-75, 77, 79)

One of the main ideas of the "House Divided" speech is the danger of the Supreme Court ruling that states can no longer prohibit slavery for themselves. Here, Lincoln warns the audience that the language displacing all authority to the Constitution has created a situation where it's unclear whether states still have that power.

Everyone's passing off the responsibility of the decision to the revered Constitution. They keep saying "subject only to the Constitution," which leaves some things open to interpretation. If the Constitution is interpreted to say that Congress can't prohibit it, then what?

The Constitution is a well-known, powerful, respected force in the United States. It's essential to how the country functions as republic. In the antebellum period, though, there was debate over whether the documents supported slavery or not. There are also several clauses, particularly the 10th Amendment, which have been interpreted very differently by different justices and legislators over the course of U.S. history.

Lincoln is not trying to say "down with the Constitution"—far from it. His references instead point out how it's been used as a pawn by people who don't want to declare for one side or the other. They just say "leave it to the Constitution," but that leads to incidents like the Dred Scott decision, in which that Constitution is interpreted very specifically.

As a political candidate for the Senate, it makes sense that Lincoln would have some focus on these constitutional issues. You want your senator to be aware of what's going on in constitutional law, generally. The motif also reinforces the pragmatic, logical bent of Lincoln's argument—there are very real, tangible reasons why he's concerned, and the way people are using the Constitution is one of the biggies.