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The tariff therefore had a controlling influence not only in deciding the contest for political supremacy but in that more momentous struggle which was to involve the fate of the Union.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “The tariff therefore had a controlling influence not only in deciding the contest for political supremacy but in that…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine argues that the tariff played a crucial role in determining political power and the fate of the Union.
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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.
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.
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.
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…
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