More stringent provisions for the return of fugitive slaves were asked, and a law was enacted trampling under foot the very spirit of liberty, and putting in peril the freedom of men who were citizens of Northern States.
Blaine criticizes the enactment of laws that undermined liberty in favor of stricter fugitive slave laws.
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It was the insane folly of the South, in drawing the sword against the life of the Nation, that led irresistibly to the abolition of slavery.
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.
These divergent practices had been allowed to develop for seventy-seven years of the nation's life, when, admonished by the Stockton case of the latitudinary results to which loose methods might lead, Congress took jurisdiction of the…
The wonder excited by the raising of the vast army which saved the Union from destruction was even surpassed by the wonder excited by its prompt and peaceful dissolution.
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