On the record
The measure was resorted to as one of self-defense against the alleged aggressions and the unrestrained power of the Executive Department.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “The measure was resorted to as one of self-defense against the alleged aggressions and the unrestrained power of the…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine describes a legislative measure taken as a defensive response to perceived executive overreach.
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More from James Blaine
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.
And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which the Constitution was meant to insure…
The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers cannot be denied.
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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