Not content with leaving us to settle this question with England, France and Prussia and Austria hastened to inform us in language professedly friendly, that England would be supported in her demand for reparation, cost what it might to us in prestige, and in power to deal with the Rebellion at home.
Blaine describes the pressures faced by the United States from European powers regarding its dealings with England.
Share
More from James Blaine
He was a lawyer in full practice, a man of the highest integrity, without fear and without reproach.
In my judgment our sole authority for the acts which we have done during the last four years was the authority communicated to Congress by the Constitution to suppress insurrection.
He had placed himself in a position from which he could not with grace retreat, and to go forward in which was still further to blight his hopes of promotion in his party.
Observing men in the loyal States regarded such a policy not only as weak and maudlin, but as utterly insufficient and assuredly dangerous to the future safety of the Government.
Other voices in this conversation
