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They believed that Texas had been paid for a baseless claim ten millions of dollars, one-half of which, as a sharp critic declared, was hush-money, the other half blood-money.
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Blaine criticizes the financial motivations behind the acquisition of Texas, emphasizing the moral implications of such transactions.
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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.
Of course the Rebellion will never be suppressed in Louisiana if the professed Union men there will neither help to do it nor permit the Government to do it without their help. . . .
Such an opportunity would have been a menace to the public credit, and would have proved a constant source of corruption.
In my judgment our sole authority for the acts which we have done during the last four years was the authority communicated to Congress by the Constitution to suppress insurrection.
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