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Between the fall of Fort Sumter on April 13, 1861, and July of that same year, President Abraham Lincoln took a number of actions without Congressional approval including the suspension of Habeas corpus. Lincoln did these actions in response to secession by eleven southern slave states which declared their secession from the United States in response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. In his address to Congress, Lincoln asks Congress to validate his actions by authorizing them after the fact. This address also marks Lincoln's first full explanation of the purpose of the war as "a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life" and the "successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. (en) |