I shall discuss the question whether an organized rebellion against a government is an organized State in that government; whether that which cannot become a State until all its officers have sworn to support the Constitution, remains a State after they have all sworn to overthrow that Constitution.
Blaine discusses the complexities of recognizing states involved in rebellion against the government.
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You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their duty.
And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which the Constitution was meant to insure…
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.
The States are colleagues of one another, and if some of them shall conquer the rest, and hold them as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are now connected.
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