In political circumstances that portended the “mortal feud” and “conflagration through a whole nation” that had concerned the Founding Fathers, Lincoln acted with conscious and deliberate intent as a constitutionalist, rather than as a revolutionist. As an antislavery reformer and representative of bourgeois capitalist society, Lincoln recognized political and constitutional limits on the federal government—including the power of the chief executive in time of war—that casts doubt on the view of him as an egalitarian nationalist. In the face of extreme antislavery pressure, Lincoln endeavored to prevent the war from degenerating into “a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle.” With single-minded determination, he insisted on the priority of maintaining the Constitution and Union as the aim of the war. His actions as president-elect in the secession crisis and as wartime chief executive were politically controversial precisely because the Constitution was not in any comprehensive way suspended. Like its Confederate counterpart in Richmond, the Lincoln administration found it necessary to restrict individual civil liberties in areas of disloyal activity and overt military operations. The temporary suspension of civil rights was undertaken because of the friction and abrasion of war, however, rather than because of a systematic design to subvert the constitutional order and establish executive dictatorship.
Lincoln’s actions on the slavery question reflected the prudence of a moderate reformer concerned with constitutional limitations and existing legal obligations. The very reason for the Republican Party’s existence, and the cause of Lincoln’s presidency, was to maintain free political and social institutions against the threat of proslavery political domination. With the outbreak of war, it was obvious that changes in the institution of slavery might occur. Yet Lincoln scrupulously subordinated action on the slavery question to the strategic objective of maintaining the Union and the Constitution. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a measure warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, which was “sincerely believed to be an act of justice.”