"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war."

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In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.... You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.

— Abraham Lincoln