James Blaine: “A brilliant talker, he did not relish idle and aimless conversation.”

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.

If this view of the subject be correct, as I think it is, then the Union must utterly perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General…

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

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.