But they would take care to let the government which multiplied provocations and sought for quarrels understand that their forbearance sprung from the consciousness of strength and not from the timidity of weakness.
Blaine asserts that a strong nation should not be mistaken for a weak one, especially in the face of provocations.
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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.
Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?
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.
But this is a totally different thing from an offensive war to punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State Government, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme.
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