On the record
To abandon the institution was to sacrifice four thousand millions of property specially protected by law.
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Blaine emphasizes the financial stakes for the South in maintaining the institution of slavery, equating it to immense property value.
Share
More from James Blaine
The Northern people shrank from the responsibility of transferring the government of States to the control of men who had already shown themselves capable of desperate deeds.
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.
The need of action and of energy so pressed upon him that he found no time to utter lamentation, none to indulge even in the most sacred personal grief.
This ratio of influence went into the Electoral College, and gave to the white men of South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana double the power of that enjoyed by white men in New York, Illinois and California.
Other voices in this conversation
