The Wilmot Proviso absorbed the attention of Congress for a longer time than the Missouri Compromise: it produced a wider and deeper excitement in the country, and it threatened a more serious danger to the peace and integrity of the Union.
Blaine highlights the intense national debate surrounding the Wilmot Proviso and its implications for the Union.
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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.
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…
But this is a totally different thing from an offensive war to punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State Government, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme.
If this view of the subject be correct, as I think it is, then the Union must utterly perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General…
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