It was therefore an invitation, not to a belligerent but to the Southern Confederacy, to accept and thus become a part to an international compact to which in the very nature of things there could be no parties save those whose acceptance constituted an international obligation.
Blaine argues that the invitation to the Southern Confederacy was not a legitimate offer to a belligerent.
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With whatever strength or prestige the President left Washington, he certainly returned to the Capital personally discredited and politically ruined.
It is to the eminent credit of the Republican members of Congress that they stood in a crisis of this magnitude true to principle, firm against all the power and all the patronage of the Administration.
Such an opportunity would have been a menace to the public credit, and would have proved a constant source of corruption.
In turn, the course of the National Administration would certainly be influenced, and its fate in large degree determined, by the conduct of the Southern men, in whom the President was placing unbounded trust.
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