Without taking time for reflection, without a review of the situation, without stopping to count the cost, with a boldness born of passionate resentment against the North, the rash men of South Carolina fired the train.
Blaine describes the impulsive actions of South Carolina's leaders in the face of Northern opposition.
Share
More from James Blaine
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.
Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?
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.
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.
Other voices in this conversation
