A new President assumes the full authority of the office upon the moment he is sworn-in. This is good, as the needs of the country don’t offer any margin for on-the-job training.

Immediately after being sworn-in, Abraham Lincoln, a profoundly inexperienced Commander-in-Chief, took decisive and remarkably brave action in attempting to provision Fort Sumter even as Confederate cannons were in place to attack it. His action let the seceding states know their unlawful departure from the Union would not be accepted passively.

Mr. Trump has already laid-out his “first 100 days” plan, and it’s a good one. Yet there is more he can do early-on.

When Donald Trump becomes president in less than 50 days, he will not be confronted by seceding states but certainly will be dealing with a culturally, politically and spiritually divided nation.

That cannot be helped, and should not dissuade him from taking the actions he promised and for which he was elected. He can use the “bully pulpit” of the presidency to seek to persuade reasonable opponents, but opposition itself cannot become a pretext for timidity when it comes to the well-being of the Republic.

Mr. Trump has already laid-out his “first 100 days” plan, and it’s a good one. Yet there is more he can do early-on, and priorities he must not neglect as his administration begins.

In his first week in office, Barack Obama issued a memorandum reversing the Reagan-Bush policy prohibiting “U.S. money from funding international family-planning clinics that promote abortion or provide counseling or referrals about abortion services.” Prior to his inauguration, Mr. Obama appointed a virtual who’s who of the pro-abortion lobby to senior positions in his incoming Administration. He even placed the National Abortion Rights Action League’s former legal director in the Justice Department as an Assistant Attorney General. It was very clear that Mr. Obama intended to be the most abortion-friendly President in American history.

Eventually,  he even insisted that an order of Catholic nuns provide contraception coverage in its health care plan and that every pharmacy in the nation offer abortion-causing contraceptives, regardless of their moral objections. Mr. Obama’s stridency concerning elective abortion on demand has been one of the hallmarks of his nearly eight years in the White House.

President Obama’s use of Executive Orders, his allies in the federal courts, and the federal rule-making apparatus to advance policies he could never get through Congress extends beyond the destruction of unborn lives and the predation of their mothers by a profit-driven abortion industry.

Consider his actions concerning same-sex marriage. As the distinguished legal scholar John Eastman wrote in 2015 about two months before the Supreme Court, by a five-four majority, jettisoned all state laws regarding the nature of marriage

The issue has been on the ballot in thirty-nine statewide elections in thirty-five different states. The cumulative total: 51,483,777 votes in favor of retaining the man-woman definition of marriage, versus 33,015,412 votes in favor of same-sex marriage. That’s a vote margin of 60.93 percent to 39.07 percent, a landslide in American politics.

As noted by the Heritage Foundation, “In 39 states citizens and their elected representatives … worked democratically to define marriage as (between) one man and one woman. In 26 of those states, judges … struck down those laws and redefined marriage.”

The Obama Administration pressed its legal advantage (i.e., the support of a liberal federal judiciary) and moved forward with its Supreme Court brief supporting same-sex marriage. And they won, overturning 226 years of clear constitutional understanding, undermining the institution of marriage, and jeopardizing religious liberty (by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli’s own admission during Supreme Court argument) in the process.

The media’s opposition to Mr. Trump did not prevent his election, and their continued opposition to him should not deter him from moving forward with the policies he promised to implement.

From transgenderism in the military (something so ridiculous that even typing the phrase seems an exercise in absurdity) to rules concerning “climate change,” Mr. Obama has pushed hard to embed his extreme social agenda into federal law and policy.

Donald Trump can and should summon the courage to undo these end-runs around the legislative process and, in many cases, common sense. To start with, Mr. Trump’s staff should prepare a list of memoranda he can issue, rules he can change, and Executive Orders he can issue — all within the realm of the constitutional authority invested in the Executive branch of government — to foster public policies that respect human life, religious liberty, natural human sexuality and sane environmental policy. And the new President should take pen in hand and sign the relevant documents to do these things, quickly and decisively.

Of course, the reaction of the mainstream media will be hostile, even outraged. So what: Their opposition to Mr. Trump did not prevent his election, and their continued opposition to him should not deter him from moving forward with the pro-life, pro-family, pro-religious liberty policies he promised to implement after taking the oath of office.

Reverse bad executive orders. Peel-away egregious regulations. Appoint federal judges — most especially Supreme Court justices — for whom the text of the Constitution is not a bothersome archaism to be distorted for “progressive” purposes but, instead, the clear charter of America’s representative self-governance.

Abraham Lincoln proved himself gutsy, principled and strong. So must Donald Trump. Let us pray to that end.