Why is Lincoln’s Fragment on the Constitution and Union one of our favorite documents? This document is short enough to be used in younger classrooms, but it’s profound enough to be worth discussing with older students as well.
Near the start of his presidency, Lincoln was thinking about the relationship between the Constitution and the Declaration. Reflecting on a passage from Proverbs that says “a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver,” he found an analogy for how to understand these two documents.
The principles within the Declaration were the words fitly spoken—an apple of gold. The Constitution was the frame of silver around the golden apple. When putting a frame around a work of art, care must be taken to choose a frame that serves important purposes. While any frame can help protect the artwork, the right frame will also not be a distraction—will not draw attention to itself. And the best frame adds to the beauty of the artwork, highlighting its best parts and drawing attention to them.
He clearly believed the Constitution is important enough to wage a war to preserve, but he didn’t want to lose sight of what makes it so important. The Constitution is the silver frame around the more important document from our Founding. It is there to “adorn and preserve” the principles within the Declaration, and that makes it worthy of saving.
All this is not the result of accident. It has a philosophical cause. Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something is the principle of “liberty to all”—the principle that clears the path for all—gives hope to all—and by consequence, enterprise, and industry to all.
The expression of that principle, in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy and fortunate. Without this, as well as with it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government and consequent prosperity. No oppressed people will fight and endure, as our fathers did, without the promise of something better than a mere change of masters.
The assertion of that principle, at that time, was the word “fitly spoken” which has proved an “apple of gold” to us. The Union and the Constitution are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was made not to conceal or destroy the apple but to adorn, and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple—not the apple for the picture.
So let us act, that neither picture or apple shall ever be blurred or bruised or broken.
That we may so act, we must study, and understand the points of danger.
Check out our Apple of Gold Poster in the bookstore.
