Towering genius distains a beaten path.

I have always wanted to deal with everyone I meet candidly and honestly. If I have made any assertion not warranted by facts, and it is pointed out to me, I will withdraw it cheerfully.

There' s nothing good in war. Except its ending.

We should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society.

In the way our Fathers originally left the slavery question, the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction . . . . All I have asked or desired anywhere, is that it should be placed back again upon the basis that the Fathers of our government originally placed it upon.

The Presidency, even to the most experienced politicians, is no bed of roses; and [Zachary] Taylor like others, found thorns within it. No human being can fill that station and escape censure.

The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the constitution that no man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.