Whatever specious plea might be made for the independent and separate sovereignty of the old thirteen States, the argument could not apply to Louisiana.
James Blaine: “Whatever specious plea might be made for the independent and separate sovereignty of the old thirteen States, the…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine argues against the notion of Louisiana's separate sovereignty, asserting that it does not apply to the state.
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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…
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.
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.
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…





