All were ordained in the spirit of liberty, all prohibited the existence of any form of slavery, and all heartily recognized the supreme sovereignty of the National Government as having been indisputably established by the overthrow of the Rebellion which was undertaken to confirm the adverse theory of State-rights.
Blaine notes the common principles in the constitutions formed during Reconstruction, emphasizing liberty and the sovereignty of the National Government.
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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.
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…
The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers cannot be denied.
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…
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