Not simply to the leading statesmen of the Senate and the House, but to Congress as a whole, in its aggregate wisdom,--always greater than the wisdom of any one man,--credit and honor are due; due for intelligence, for courage, for zeal in the service of an endangered but now triumphant and prosperous Republic.
Blaine acknowledges the collective wisdom of Congress in contributing to the prosperity of the Republic.
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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.
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 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…
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.
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