The defect in both Amendments, in so far as their main object of securing rights to the colored race is involved, lies in the fact that they do not operate directly upon the people, and therefore Congress is not endowed with the pertinent and applicable power to give redress.
Blaine critiques the effectiveness of the Amendments in securing rights for African Americans due to their indirect application.
Share
More from James Blaine
Their pirates burned your unarmed commerce upon every sea.
Of course the Rebellion will never be suppressed in Louisiana if the professed Union men there will neither help to do it nor permit the Government to do it without their help. . . .
Another theory and another practice were now to prevail; for it had been demonstrated to the thoughtful statesmen who then controlled the Government, that every thing which may be done by either Nation or State may be better and more…
Many Northern Democrats had indeed given the assurance that if any attempt at coercion should be made by the Republican National Administration, they would themselves meet it with force, and that, if war should come, it would be in the…
Other voices in this conversation
