Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.

I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails under which laborers can strike when they want to.

Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.

I am not an accomplished lawyer.

In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man.