But we have met by the powers of the Constitution these great dangers--prophesied when they would arise as likely to be our doom--the distractions of civil strife, the exhaustions of powerful war, the intervention of the regularity of power through the violence of assassination.
Blaine acknowledges the dangers faced by the nation and the constitutional powers that address them.
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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.
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.
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…
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.
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