Its authors were not afraid of an immediate invasion of the rights of the slave-holder in the States, but they were conscious that the growth of the country, the progress of civilization, and the expansion of our population, were all hostile to their continued supremacy as the governing element in the Republic.
Blaine argues that the authors of the secession movement were aware of the threats to their dominance posed by national growth and progress.
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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.
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.
If this view of the subject be correct, as I think it is, then the Union must utterly perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General…
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…
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