Had the Southern statesmen foreseen the immense wealth, population, and value of this imperial domain in the five great States and four Territories into which it is to-day divided, they would have abandoned the struggle for equality.
Blaine reflects on the missed opportunities perceived by Southern statesmen regarding the wealth of newly acquired territories.
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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…
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.
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…
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