James Blaine: “It was a final blow at the Unit Rule, and aimed to reduce the precedents and decisions of former conventions to plain…”

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.

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…

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…