No organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. .. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions.

If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal,' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.

I freely acknowledge myself the servant of the people, according to the bond of service - the United States Constitution; and that, as such, I am responsible to them.

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.

Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they take it by war.

Half finished work generally proves to be labor lost.

All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.