Unless, therefore, the Loyal States were willing to allow the Rebel States to come back on their own terms, in a spirit of dictation to the Government of the Union, they were under the imperious necessity of providing some other basis of reconstruction than the one which the South had unitedly rejected.
Blaine argues that the Loyal States must find a new basis for reconstruction due to the South's rejection of terms.
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The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers cannot be denied.
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 what if the feeling in any State against the United States should become so universal that the Federal officers themselves (including judges, district attorneys, and marshals) would be reached by the same influences, and resign their…
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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