James Blaine: “This course on the part of the Southern States was simply a declaration of defiance to Congress.”

The States are colleagues of one another, and if some of them shall conquer the rest, and hold them as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are now connected.

Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?

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.

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.