Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail.

I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. It is not the Constitution as I would like to have it, but as it is, that is to be defended. The Constitution will not be preserved & defended until it is enforced & obeyed in every part of every one of the United States. It must be so respected, obeyed, enforced and defended, and let the grass grow where it may.

No State, upon it own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally nothing. I therefore consider that the Union is unbroken. There needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless forced upon the national authority.

It is bad to be poor. I shall go to the wall for bread and meat, if I neglect my business this year as well as last.

I could not sleep when I got on the hunt for an idea, until I had caught it. This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck with me.

I will either be America's greatest president or its last.

The greatest lessons I have every learned were at my mother's knees... All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.