On the record
The President recognized the reserved right of revolution in the States, and it was a necessary incident of that right that each State might decide when the right should be exercised.
Source
gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “The President recognized the reserved right of revolution in the States, and it was a necessary incident of that right…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine notes the President's acknowledgment of a state's right to revolution under certain conditions.
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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.
All these provisions are made to protect the States, not to authorize an attack by one part of the country upon another; to preserve the peace, and not to plunge them into civil war.
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.
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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