It was apparent therefore within the first six months of the struggle that a division would come in the North, which would be of incalculable advantage to the insurrectionists, and that if the division should go far enough it would insure victory to the Confederate cause.
Blaine warns of the potential division in the North that could benefit the Confederate cause.
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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.
Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?
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…
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