James Blaine: “If the slave-holders could maintain their supremacy in the Union, they would prefer to remain.”

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.

All these provisions are made to protect the States, not to authorize an attack by one part of the country upon another; to preserve the peace, and not to plunge them into civil war.

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.

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