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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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.
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.
An avenging God cannot sleep while such things find countenance.
I have long since wished that capital punishment were abolished.
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