On the record
But we must never forget that what may be mercy to the individual is cruelty to the State.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “But we must never forget that what may be mercy to the individual is cruelty to the State.”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine warns that what may seem merciful to an individual can be detrimental to the state, highlighting the tension between individual and collective interests.
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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.
And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which the Constitution was meant to insure…
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…
The States are colleagues of one another, and if some of them shall conquer the rest, and hold them as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are now connected.
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