James Blaine: “By the Missouri Compromise every square mile of this domain had been honorably devoted to freedom.”

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.

The right of the General Government to preserve itself in its whole constitutional vigor by repelling a direct and positive aggression upon its property or its officers cannot be denied.

But this is a totally different thing from an offensive war to punish the people for the political misdeeds of their State Government, or to enforce an acknowledgment that the Government of the United States is supreme.

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.