Did Lincoln steal his famous "preserve the union" phrase from Madison or some other Founding Father? I've now seen Madison use the phrase more than once. The latest example I found follows:
It appeared to be the sincere and unanimous wish of the Convention to cherish and preserve the Union of the States. No proposition was made, no suggestion was thrown out, in favor of a partition of the Empire into two or more Confederacies
If Lincoln did steal it from Madison, he ignored what Madison immediately said next:
It was generally agreed that the objects of the Union could not be secured by any system founded on the principle of a confederation of sovereign States. A voluntary observance of the federal law by all the members, could never be hoped for. A compulsive one could evidently never be reduced to practice, and if it could, involved equal calamities to the innocent & the guilty, the necessity of a military force both obnoxious & dangerous, and in general, a scene resembling much more a civil war, than the administration of a regular Government.
Even if Lincoln had read Madison's prescient observation, his statist ambition would have ignored it. For more details, check out
The Real Lincoln.
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