Its authors meant it to be... a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.

A right result, at this time, will be worth more to the world, than ten times the men, and ten times the money.

If you intend to go to work there is no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to work, you can not get along anywhere.

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

I sincerely wish war was a pleasanter and easier business than it is, but it does not admit of holidays.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practised [sic] and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speech-making. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance.

I desire to see the time when education, and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry shall become much more general than at present.