On the record
His course saved the administration, not indeed from a mortifying position, but from a continually increasing embarrassment which seemed to force upon the country the cruel alternatives of war or dishonor.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “His course saved the administration, not indeed from a mortifying position, but from a continually increasing…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine discusses the political maneuvering that alleviated a potentially embarrassing situation for the administration.
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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.
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 this is a totally different thing from an offensive war to punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State Government, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme.
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.
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