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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you.
I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with
the institution of slavery where it exists. I believe I have
no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge
that I had made this and many similar declarations, and had
never recanted them. And, more than this, they placed in the
platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me,
the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:
"Resolved: that the maintenance inviolate
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