James Blaine: “The great body of thinking men in the North saw that the real contest impending was against slavery and not against…”

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.

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.

You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their duty.