On the record
When at last through sheer exhaustion the Confederate Armies ceased resistance and surrendered, they did so on precisely the same terms that had been offered by the Government of the Union three months before.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “When at last through sheer exhaustion the Confederate Armies ceased resistance and surrendered, they did so on precisely…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine notes the irony of the Confederate surrender terms being the same as those previously offered by the Union.
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Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?
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.
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.
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.
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