The arguments Abraham Lincoln used against the secession of the Southern states include:
- The government was a union of people, not states.
- The Southern states lacked the power to secede under the Constitution.
Lincoln argued that the United States was a single nation rather than a mere collection of sovereign states, and therefore, secession was not a constitutional right. He believed that the Constitution created a government that represented the people collectively, and that no state could unilaterally withdraw from the union. The other points mentioned—popular sovereignty and economic arguments against slavery—were not central to Lincoln's arguments against secession.