James Blaine: “Lincoln desired to prevent war, and he felt that every day of peace gave fresh hope that bloodshed might be avoided.”

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.

Without the exercise of those functions which belong exclusively to the civil service, the laws cannot be executed in any event, no matter what may be the physical strength which the Government has at its command.

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

The States are colleagues of one another, and if some of them shall conquer the rest, and hold them as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are now connected.