Not only were the official acts of the Southern Conventions inspired by a spirit of apparently irreconcilable hatred of the Union, but the popular manifestations in the South were for more decided in the same direction.
Blaine describes the hostility of the Southern Conventions towards the Union after the Civil War.
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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.
You can use force only to repel an assault on the public property and aid the Courts in the performance of their duty.
And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which the Constitution was meant to insure…
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