James Blaine: “He said, "This nation has been able thus far to conduct a domestic war of unparalleled magnitude and cost without…”

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 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.

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.

You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their duty.