On the record
He came as one appointed to a great duty, not with rashness, not with weakness, not with bravado, not with shrinking, but in the perfect confidence of a just cause and with the stainless conscience of a good man.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “He came as one appointed to a great duty, not with rashness, not with weakness, not with bravado, not with shrinking…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine portrays Lincoln's approach to his duties with confidence and integrity.
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More from James Blaine
If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general hostilities carried on by the Central Government against a State, then it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be ipso facto an expulsion of such State from the…
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.
You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their duty.
Under such circumstances, to send a military force into any State, with orders to act against the people, would be simply making war upon them.
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