Political Quotes

James Blaine: “Stephens secured an election to the Senate, and was in Washington at the ensuing session of Congress, asking admission…”

On the record
Stephens secured an election to the Senate, and was in Washington at the ensuing session of Congress, asking admission to a seat as cooly as if every living man had forgotten that for four years he had been exerting his utmost effort to destroy the Constitution under which he now claimed the full rights of a citizen.
Said by
James Blaine
Republican · Maine

Editor's note · Context

Blaine criticizes the audacity of a former Confederate leader seeking a Senate seat after the Civil War.

Share

More from James Blaine

Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?

gutenberg.org

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.

gutenberg.org

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…

gutenberg.org

If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general hostilities carried on by the Central Government against a State, then it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be ipso facto an expulsion of such State from the…

gutenberg.org

Other voices in this conversation