A tie-vote cannot carry measures, but it can always defeat them; and any combination of votes that possesses the negative power will in the end, if it can be firmly held, direct and control the positive action of the body to which it belongs.
Blaine explains the influence of a tie-vote in legislative processes.
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Crises often arise in the conduct of National affairs when cherished opinions must be sacrificed and new departures taken.
But in the treatment of the colored man, now proposed, there was absolute heartlessness and rank injustice.
It is to the eminent credit of the Republican members of Congress that they stood in a crisis of this magnitude true to principle, firm against all the power and all the patronage of the Administration.
Another theory and another practice were now to prevail; for it had been demonstrated to the thoughtful statesmen who then controlled the Government, that every thing which may be done by either Nation or State may be better and more…
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