adapted from Lincoln the Great
by Wilfred W. McClay

When the young Daniel Webster mourned George Washington’s death in 1800 as the loss of the Union’s “great political cement,” he was moved to add the following haunting image: “I already see, in my imagination, the time when the banner of civil war shall be unfurled . . . and when American blood shall be made to flow in rivers by American swords!” For anyone who lived through the acrimonious1 politics of the 1790s, such foreboding thoughts did not seem out of place. Similar premonitions ran through the signal events of early American political history.

Lincoln firmly took his stand in defense of the transcendent2 ideal of the Union as the sine qua non3 for the success of the American experiment in republican government. Indeed, as the conflict wore on, he spoke more and more frequently not just of the Union but of “the nation.” When he did speak of “the Union,” he presented it not as a means to an end but as an end in itself, something worthy of sacrifice in its own right. Lincoln well understood that the future of constitutional liberty, and the most worthy social reforms, depended in a fundamental way upon a strong and cohesive nation. ”
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1 bitter and sharp
2 passing all others; supreme
3 essential (literally, without that which . . .)

1
Select the correct answer.
Which is the best inference about Lincoln’s interpretation of his primary presidential duty?

A.
to sacrifice constitutional liberty for the good of the nation
B.
to follow Washington’s directive to be political cement for the nation
C.
to preserve the country’s founding principle of a nation of states
D.
to create a new form of republican government for the Union states