On the record
We could not have refused to surrender Mason and Slidell without trampling upon our own principles and disregarding the many precedents we had sought to establish.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “We could not have refused to surrender Mason and Slidell without trampling upon our own principles and disregarding the…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine emphasizes the importance of adhering to established principles in international relations, particularly regarding the surrender of prisoners.
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More from James Blaine
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…
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.
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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