...the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was...understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration this oadi even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery....

...defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath, not was it my view that I might take an oath to get power and break the oath in using the power." Thus in every emergency we find him slow and reluctant in the assumption and exercise of unusual or...

...the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. * * * Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using that power. * * * I did understand that my oath imposed upon me the duty of preserving, to the best...