Constitutional Compromise - The Constitution of 17 Eight, Seven

Lincoln broke any possibility of return to the constitution of 17 eight, seven as it had been shored up and rebuilt by a series of quasi constitutional compromises in the year before the war. He knew that he might lose the presidential election in 18 64, and if that happened, he realized a new president might re offer some version of the compromise to the south. But as long as he was president, he was insisting there would not be a compromise by this emancipation act. In so doing, l Lincoln was also opening up a new possibility, one we are familiar with to day, but that had not existed before. That was the idea of the constitution as a constitution genuinely in keeping with morality