If a President, constitutionally elected, could not be inaugurated, it was better then and there to ascertain the fact than to postpone the issue by an evasion or a surrender.
James Blaine: “If a President, constitutionally elected, could not be inaugurated, it was better then and there to ascertain the fact…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine emphasizes the importance of addressing constitutional issues directly rather than avoiding them.
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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…
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.
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…





