They did not lose the opportunity of demonstrating that a system of protection which would have manufactured more and imported less, and which would thus have retained many millions of our specie at home, would have enabled us to meet the trials of the war with greater strength and confidence.
Blaine emphasizes the importance of a protective economic system during wartime to maintain financial stability.
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But in the treatment of the colored man, now proposed, there was absolute heartlessness and rank injustice.
It was the insane folly of the South, in drawing the sword against the life of the Nation, that led irresistibly to the abolition of slavery.
Observing men in the loyal States regarded such a policy not only as weak and maudlin, but as utterly insufficient and assuredly dangerous to the future safety of the Government.
Such an opportunity would have been a menace to the public credit, and would have proved a constant source of corruption.
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