Question

By general law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life, but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that to the best of my ability I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution altogether.

Answer 1

what does this mean in simpler terms?

Answer 2

@gboukater1

Answer 3

@nincompoop

Answer 4

@phi

Answer 5

Lincoln is saying that though the US Constitution did not allow him to do it, Lincoln banned slavery anyway. (The correct way was for the States to amend the Constitution). But Lincoln thought that if he did not ban slavery, the government and the country would be ruined (permanently divided into separate countries that would be at war, for example).

He justified what he did by comparing the government to a human, and saying it is bad to kill a person or to cut off his leg. But sometimes, you have to cut off the leg (e.g. it is infected with gangrene) to save the person's life. In the same way it is *sometimes* ok to cut off the leg of a person, it was ok for Lincoln to ignore the Constitution... because if he followed the Constitution, slavery would have continued and the country would have died (metaphorically speaking)