They are diligently contrived for catches and committals to be subsequently used in political campaigns, but it may well be doubted whether they ever produce substantial effect upon legislation or prove either gainful or hurtful in partisan contests.
Blaine critiques the effectiveness of political declarations in influencing legislation and their potential lack of substantial impact.
Share
More from James Blaine
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.
You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their duty.
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.
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.
Other voices in this conversation
