On the record
They had been so long in command that they had become incapable of obedience.
Source
gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “They had been so long in command that they had become incapable of obedience.”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine argues that the Southern leaders' long tenure in power made them unable to accept subordination.
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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.
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…
Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?
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.
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