On the record
The makers of the law evidently intended that it should apply to the negro alone, for it was administered on that basis with rigorous severity.
Source
gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “The makers of the law evidently intended that it should apply to the negro alone, for it was administered on that basis…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine asserts that the law was intentionally designed to target African Americans, reflecting systemic racism.
Share
More from James Blaine
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.
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 States are colleagues of one another, and if some of them shall conquer the rest, and hold them as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are now connected.
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.
Other voices in this conversation
