On the record
It was an extreme proposition,--a new departure from the long-established usage of the Federal Government, and for that reason, if for no other, personally degrading to the incumbent of the Presidential office.
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Blaine critiques a significant legislative change as a departure from established norms, highlighting its potential degradation of presidential authority.
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The Northern people shrank from the responsibility of transferring the government of States to the control of men who had already shown themselves capable of desperate deeds.
An attempt to guarantee and protect a revived State government constructed in whole or in preponderating part from the very element against whose hostility and violence it is to be protected is simply absurd.
It was the insane folly of the South, in drawing the sword against the life of the Nation, that led irresistibly to the abolition of slavery.
This ratio of influence went into the Electoral College, and gave to the white men of South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana double the power of that enjoyed by white men in New York, Illinois and California.
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