The colored representatives, who had been slaves, were willing to release their late masters from every form of disability, but the immediate friends of the masters were unwilling to extend the civil rights of the colored man.
Blaine notes the willingness of former slaves to forgive their masters, contrasting it with the reluctance of the latter to grant civil rights.
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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.
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.
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.
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