On the record
They would not accept the honorable assurance of the Republican party and of the President-elect that no interference with slavery in the States was designed.
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Blaine highlights the refusal of Southern leaders to accept assurances from the Republican party regarding slavery.
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Crises often arise in the conduct of National affairs when cherished opinions must be sacrificed and new departures taken.
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.
Such an opportunity would have been a menace to the public credit, and would have proved a constant source of corruption.
As slavery had been the chief inciting cause of disunion, slavery should die.
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