Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 204

It is much less difficult now than in Lincoln's day to see that on both sides sovereign Americans had given their lives in the Civil War to maintain the balance between the powers they had delegated to the States and to their Union.

They differed in the balance they believed essential to the sovereignty of the citizen -- but the supreme sacrifice each made served to maintain a still more fundamental truth: That individual life, liberty and happiness depend on a right balance between the two -- and on the limitation of sovereignty, in all its aspects, which this involves.

The 140,414 Americans who gave `` the last full measure of devotion '' to prevent disunion, preserved individual freedom in the United States from the dangers of anarchy, inherent in confederations, which throughout history have proved fatal in the end to all associations composed primarily of sovereign states, and to the liberties of their people.

But the fact that 70,524 other Americans gave the same measure of devotion to an opposing concept served Liberty-and-Union in other essential ways.