By this declaration the President justified, and in effect advised, an appeal from the constitutional tribunals of the country to a popular judgment in the aggrieved States, and recognized the right of those States, upon such popular judgment, to destroy the Constitution and Union.
Blaine critiques the President's justification for appealing to popular judgment over constitutional authority, warning of the potential consequences for the Union.
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In my judgment our sole authority for the acts which we have done during the last four years was the authority communicated to Congress by the Constitution to suppress insurrection.
I refer myself not to the men of my time, but to the judgment of history.
It is to the eminent credit of the Republican members of Congress that they stood in a crisis of this magnitude true to principle, firm against all the power and all the patronage of the Administration.
Crises often arise in the conduct of National affairs when cherished opinions must be sacrificed and new departures taken.
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