James Blaine: “Clay realized that it was his position on the Texas question, as defined in the Raleigh letter, which was endangering…”

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.

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.

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…

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.