On the record
This is the doctrine of despotism, better becoming that empire which they are attempting to establish in the South.
Source
gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “This is the doctrine of despotism, better becoming that empire which they are attempting to establish in the South.”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine critiques the idea that Congress should merely follow orders from external powers, equating it to despotism.
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More from James Blaine
The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers cannot be denied.
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…
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 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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