On the record
Lincoln presents a strong contrast with his predecessors,--Pierce and Buchanan,--illustrating afresh the contradiction that the party declaiming most loudly against Executive power has constantly abused it.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “Lincoln presents a strong contrast with his predecessors,--Pierce and Buchanan,--illustrating afresh the contradiction…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine points out the irony that the party most vocal against executive power has often misused it, using Lincoln as a key example.
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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…
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.
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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