In this short note, written during the constitutional crisis over secession, Lincoln reflects on the relationship between the legal principles of the U.S. Constitution and the moral principles announced in the Declaration of Independence. This note was written in January 1861, as several states were considering secession. A few weeks prior, Lincoln had received a letter from the secessionist Alexander Stephens, urging him to calm the crisis by appeasing Southerners. Stephens wrote: “A word fitly spoken by you now would be like ‘apples of gold in pictures of silver.’” Lincoln’s fragment adopts this quotation, taken from Proverbs 25:11. Lincoln argues the Constitution is designed to further the principles laid forth in the Declaration of liberty and equality for all.