Firmly seated in Mexico, it would have spread through Central America to the Isthmus, controlling all canal communications between the two oceans which were the boundaries of the Union, while its growth upon the Pacific Coast would have been in direct rivalry with the natural and increasing power of the United States.
Blaine describes the strategic implications of a foreign presence in Mexico for U.S. control over canal communications.
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You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their duty.
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.
And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which the Constitution was meant to insure…
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.
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