James Blaine: “The Democrats had uniformly maintained that the right of suffrage was a question which came within the political power…”

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.

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.

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.

But what if the feeling in any State against the United States should become so universal that the Federal officers themselves (including judges, district attorneys, and marshals) would be reached by the same influences, and resign their…