I believe it to be within the just power of Congress to reverse the decision of 1789, and I mean to hold myself at liberty to act hereafter on that question as the safety of the Government and of the Constitution may require.
Blaine asserts the authority of Congress to revisit historical decisions for the sake of government safety and constitutional integrity.
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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…
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.
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