...Tallmadge deserved the same punishment meted out to Ambrister and Arbuthnot. He defiantly answered: "Sir, if a dissolution of the Union must take place, let...threaten, must come, I can only say, let it come!" John Quincy Adams stated that the Tallmadge Amendment "produced great fermentation ... in the Southern...

...attacked them and threatened disunion were they ever approved. Let it come, Tallmadge spat back: "Sir, if a dissolution of the Union must take place, let it be so!" ("I hope that a similar discussion will never again take place in our walls," wrote one shaken representative...

...authority. Meanwhile, as tempers and threats rose in the halls of government, Tallmadge proclaimed: Sir, if a dissolution of the Union must take place, let it be so! If civil war, which [Southern] gentlemen so much threaten, must come, I can only say, let it come! ... If blood is necessary...

...been fairly joined, however, he appeared willing, and believed the North willing, to see it through. If a dissolution of the Union must take place, let...threaten, must come, I can only say, let it come! ... If blood is necessary to extinguish any fire which I have assisted to kindle, I can assure gentlemen,...

...extinguish." But Tallmadge defended his moderate proposition with a steadfastness not at all moderate: "If a dissolution of the Union must take place, let...so much threaten, must come, I can only say, let it come!"64 Like the overture to an operatic drama, the Missouri Controversy prefigured the coming forty-five...

...waters of the ocean cannot put out, and which only seas of blood can extinguish," Tallmadge replied, "If civil war, which gentlemen so much threaten, must come, I can only say, let it come. If blood is necessary to extinguish any fire which I have assisted to kindle, while I regret the necessity,...