On the record
I do not declare war, but as one American citizen I do prefer war to cowardly submission to a total destruction of the fundamental principles of our Government.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “I do not declare war, but as one American citizen I do prefer war to cowardly submission to a total destruction of the…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine expresses his belief that he would rather face war than submit to the erosion of fundamental government principles.
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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.
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.
But what if the feeling in any State against the United States should become so universal that the Federal officers themselves (including judges, district attorneys, and marshals) would be reached by the same influences, and resign their…
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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