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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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.
If it be true that war cannot be declared, nor a system of general hostilities carried on by the Central Government against a State, then it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be ipso facto an expulsion of such State from the…
But what if the feeling in any State against the United States should become so universal that the Federal officers themselves (including judges, district attorneys, and marshals) would be reached by the same influences, and resign their…
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