On the record
With quick observation and keen insight, however, he perceived a great opportunity to serve the South, and to serve the South was with him not only a principle, but a passion.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “With quick observation and keen insight, however, he perceived a great opportunity to serve the South, and to serve the…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine reflects on the motivations of a Southern leader who saw opportunities in political service.
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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.
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…
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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