Seeing slavery thus hemmed in on all sides by nature as well as law, and sincerely believing that in such a position its final extinction was but a question of time, the Southern leaders determined to break the bonds that bound them.
Blaine reflects on the Southern leaders' perception of slavery's future in a constrained environment.
Share
More from James Blaine
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.
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…
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…
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.
Other voices in this conversation
