James Blaine: “The burden was already as heavy as she could bear in her entirety, and dismemberment so crippled her that she could not…”

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

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.

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.

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.