No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.

The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.

Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.

In countries where associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are factions, but no conspiracies.

How could a society escape destruction if, when political ties are relaxed, moral ties are not tightened, and what can be done with a people master of itself if it not subject to God?

Among the droves of men with political ambitions in the United States, I found very few with that virile candor, that manly independence of thought, that often distinguished Americans in earlier times and that is invariably the preeminent trait of great characters wherever it exists.