It is notable especially because of the extreme tension to which it subjected the Constitution, and the attestation it affords of the restraint which a free people instinctively impose upon themselves in times of public excitement.
Blaine highlights the constitutional tension created by the impeachment process and the self-restraint of the public during crises.
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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.
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 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…
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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