The comparison of the Southern States under the measures of Reconstruction, with Ireland under the measures of the British Government, naturally suggested by hostile criticism in the English press, is not without its useful lessons.
He draws a comparison between the conditions in the Southern States and Ireland, suggesting lessons to be learned from criticism.
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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.
If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general hostilities carried on by the Central Government against a State, then it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be ipso facto an expulsion of such State from the…
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.
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