He pursued the wiser course of showing that the spirit of the Southern insurrection was hostile to all free labor, and that in its triumph not merely the independence of the laborer but his right of self-defense, as conferred by suffrage, would be imperiled if not destroyed.
Blaine highlights Lincoln's strategy of framing the Southern insurrection as a threat to free labor and suffrage.
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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.
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.
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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