During his famous debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln had to defend an impopular cause: abolishing slavery in the South.
His rival in the debates called for "popular vote" to solve the issue, knowing that slavery will win in the South.
Lincoln -as scholar Franklin Jaffa explained in his book "A New Birth of Freedom"- chose a different path: he insisted that the Declaration of Independence considered Liberty as a God-given birth right of every human being. Therefore, Liberty couldn't be voted against or submitted to a circumstantial majority -which is what populists try to do by "governing by referendum" -from Hitler's Sudetenland annexation to Brexit and Catalonia's secession-.
In his film "Lincoln", Steven Spielberg -assisted by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin- showed in one memorable scene how Lincoln used reason as the basis for emancipation and abolishing slavery.
The US Constitution, explained Jaffa, is preceded historically and philosophically by the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution is in fact, an instrument that defines the means to achieve and support the Rights enumerated in the Declaration.
Therefore, argued Lincoln, the Constitution itself cannot be modified against its Bill of Rights.
In this small kernel lies the entire difference between rule of law and rule by mob, between a republic of laws and a democracy.
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