James Blaine: “The value of his active loyalty to the Union may be measured by the disaster which would have been caused by hesitation…”

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.

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.

But what if the feeling in any State against the United States should become so universal that the Federal officers themselves (including judges, district attorneys, and marshals) would be reached by the same influences, and resign their…