If Englishmen had studied the Reconstruction policy instead of deriding it, they might have learned that the American Government accomplished for the South in four years what their own Government has failed to accomplish for Ireland through ten generations.
He critiques the British understanding of American Reconstruction, suggesting it achieved more in four years than Britain did for Ireland in centuries.
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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.
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.
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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