James Blaine: “Always an admirable adviser where prudence and caution were the virtues required, he was fatally wanting in a situation…”

And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which the Constitution was meant to insure…

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.

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

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.