But what if the feeling in any State against the United States
should become so universal that the Federal officers themselves
(including judges, district attorneys, and marshals) would be
reached by the same influences, and resign their places? Of course,
the first step would be to appoint others in their stead, if others
could be got to serve. But in such an event, it is more than
probable that great difficulty would be found in filling the offices.
We can easily conceive how it might become altogether impossible.
We are therefore obliged to consider what can be done in case we
have no courts to issue judicial process, and no ministerial officers
to execute it. In that event troops would certainly be out of
place, and their use wholly illegal. If they are sent to aid the
courts and marshals, there must be courts and marshals to be aided.
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.

"The existing laws put and keep the Federal Government strictly on
the defensive. You can use force only to repel an assault on the
public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their
duty. If the means given you to collect the revenue and execute
the other laws be insufficient for that purpose, Congress may extend
and make them more effectual to those ends.

"If one of the States should declare her independence, your action
cannot depend upon the righteousness of the cause upon which such
declaration is based. Whether the retirement of the State from
the Union be the exercise of a right reserved in the Constitution,
or a revolutionary movement, it is certain that you have not in
either case the authority to recognize her independence or to
absolve her from her Federal obligations. Congress, or the other
States in Convention assembled, must take such measures as may be
necessary and proper. In such an event, I see no course for you
but to go straight onward in the path you have hitherto trodden--
that is, execute the laws to the extent of the defensive means
placed in your hands, and act generally upon the assumption that
the present constitutional relations between the States and the
Federal Government conti