3. _Argument from the nature of the American Union._ Here Lincoln began with the proposition that the American Union is older than the Constitution. Now since the Constitution was formed “to make a more perfect union,” it must have had in view the “vital element of perpetuity,” since the omission of this element would have left a less perfect union than before. The intent of the Constitution was that “no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union.” Therefore the American Union, as an instrument of government, had in its legal nature protection against this kind of disintegration. 4. _Argument from the nature of the chief magistrate’s office._ Having thus defined the Union, Lincoln next looked at the duties which its nature imposed upon the chief magistrate. He defined it as “simple duty” on the chief magistrate’s part to see that the laws of this unbroken union “be faithfully executed in all the states.” Obviously the argument was to justify active measures in defense of the Union. As Lincoln conceived the definition, it was not the duty of the chief magistrate to preside over the disintegration of the Union, but to carry on the executive office just as if no possibility of disintegration threatened. Thus far, it will be observed, the speech is a series of deductions, each one deriving from the preceding definition. 5. _Argument from the nature of majority rule._ This argument, with its fine axiomatic statements, was used by Lincoln to indicate how the government should proceed in cases not expressly envisaged by the Constitution. Popular government demands acquiescence by minorities in all such cases. “If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government will cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing the government is acquiescence on one side or the other. “If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such a minority.”[94] The difficulty of the Confederacy with states’ rights within its own house was to attest to the soundness of this argument. 6. _Argument from the nature of the sovereignty of the people._ Here Lincoln conceded the right of the whole people to change its government by constitutional reform or by revolutionary action. But he saw this right vested in the people as a whole, and he insisted that any change be carried out by the modes prescribed. The institutions of the country were finally the creations of the sovereign will of the people. But until a will on this issue was properly expressed, the government had a commission to endure as before.