The establishment and maintenance of a blockade is not accounted by naval officers as the most brilliant service to which in the line of their profession they may be deputed, but it was a service of inestimable value to the cause of the Union, and it was performed with a skill and thoroughness never surpassed.
Blaine emphasizes the importance of the naval blockade during the Civil War and its impact on the Union's success.
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I am in no boastful mood: I shall not do more than I can, but I shall do all I can to save the Government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination.
An attempt to guarantee and protect a revived State government constructed in whole or in preponderating part from the very element against whose hostility and violence it is to be protected is simply absurd.
That is his work and it cannot properly be taken out of his hands.
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.
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