Lincoln placed it, the free laborer in the North was disposed to regard a general emancipation of the slaves as tending to reduce his own wages, and as subjecting him to the disadvantage of an odious contest for precedence of race.
Blaine notes the concerns of Northern laborers regarding emancipation and its potential impact on their wages.
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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.
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…
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…
Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?
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