James Blaine: “Ready to hear argument and always open to conviction, he adhered tenaciously to the conclusions which he had finally…”

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.

Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?

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.

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…