Events, as they developed in the stirring and sorrowful years that followed, were but a continual proof of that form of original blunder on the part of the Southern whites, which in affairs of civil administration is worse than a crime.
Blaine asserts that the mistakes made by Southern whites during Reconstruction were significant and damaging.
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You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their duty.
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.
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…
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