On the record
While the Democrats as a body had persistently opposed emancipation, and regarded it as a great political wrong, the party now resolved to maintain it.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “While the Democrats as a body had persistently opposed emancipation, and regarded it as a great political wrong, the…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine highlights the shift in the Democratic Party's stance on emancipation, illustrating a significant political transformation.
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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 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.
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.
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.
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