James Blaine: “Lincoln saw, moreover, that war between a divided North and a united South would be a remediless calamity.”

Under such circumstances, to send a military force into any State, with orders to act against the people, would be simply making war upon them.

Without the exercise of those functions which belong exclusively to the civil service, the laws cannot be executed in any event, no matter what may be the physical strength which the Government has at its command.

All these provisions are made to protect the States, not to authorize an attack by one part of the country upon another; to preserve the peace, and not to plunge them into civil war.

Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?