On the record
If they had advised the Southern States that it was wiser and better to abide in the Union, and at least to wait for some overt act of wrong against the slave States, the whole movement would have collapsed.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “If they had advised the Southern States that it was wiser and better to abide in the Union, and at least to wait for…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine suggests that had senators advised Southern states to remain in the Union, secession might have been avoided.
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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.
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…
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.
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