On the record
The seats of fifty members in the House and twenty members in the Senate are yet vacant, not by their own consent, nor by a failure of election, but by the refusal of Congress to accept their credentials.
Source
gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “The seats of fifty members in the House and twenty members in the Senate are yet vacant, not by their own consent, nor…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine points out that many congressional seats remain vacant due to Congress not accepting credentials.
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More from James Blaine
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.
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?
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