On the record
Douglas proposed to submit Southern rights under the Constitution to the decision of the first mob or rabble that might get possession of a Territorial legislature, and pass a police regulation hostile to slavery.
Source
gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “Douglas proposed to submit Southern rights under the Constitution to the decision of the first mob or rabble that might…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine critiques Douglas's proposal regarding Southern rights and its implications for slavery.
Share
More from James Blaine
You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their duty.
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…
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.
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.
Other voices in this conversation
