On the record
Despite the eloquence and the great influence of the Speaker, the Southern representatives were overborne and the House adopted the anti-slavery restriction.
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gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “Despite the eloquence and the great influence of the Speaker, the Southern representatives were overborne and the House…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine notes the outcome of a significant vote in the House regarding anti-slavery restrictions despite strong opposition.
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More from James Blaine
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…
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.
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.
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.
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