Lincoln argues that the American Union did not begin when the Constitution took effect in 1789. He traces its development to the Articles of Association adopted by the First Continental Congress in 1774, when the colonies coordinated resistance to British policy, and to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which presented them collectively as united states.

This historical account supports his wider legal argument that the Union was not a temporary arrangement created solely by the Constitution. Instead, the Constitution strengthened and reorganised an existing political association. On this view, individual states could not claim that they had joined only through the Constitution and therefore retained a unilateral right to leave it.

The passage uses history to justify constitutional continuity during the secession crisis. Lincoln presents the Union as the product of a long process of collective action, independence and government, rather than an agreement that any member could dissolve independently.