We are so familiar with the vast sums which the war against the Rebellion caused the National Government to disburse, that it is difficult to appreciate the spirit with which the legislators of 1861 approached the impending burdens.
Blaine reflects on the difficulty of understanding the financial burdens faced by legislators in 1861 due to the scale of the war's costs.
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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…
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.
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.
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.
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