The time will come when the people, being convinced of these things, will say that there is more to be feared from a combined Congress than from a President, in relation to the liberties of the people." The angry position of Mr.
Blaine warns of the potential dangers of a powerful Congress, suggesting that it could threaten individual liberties more than a President might.
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And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which the Constitution was meant to insure…
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.
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.
Without the exercise of those functions which belong exclusively to the civil service, the laws cannot be executed in any event, no matter what may be the physical strength which the Government has at its command.
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