I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country.

The authority of the Supreme Court must not be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.

You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessings.

There is nothing that I shudder at more than the idea of a separation of the Union. Should such an event ever happen, which I fervently pray God to avert, from that date I view our liberty gone.

Without union our independence and liberty would never have been achieved; without union they can never be maintained. Divided into twenty-four, or even a smaller number, of separate communities, we shall see our internal trade burdened with numberless restraints and exactions; communications between distant points and sections obstructed or cut off; our sons made soldiers to deluge with blood the fields they now till in peace...The loss of liberty, of all good government, of peace, plenty, and happiness, must inevitably follow a dissolution of the Union.

Give me a thousand Tennesseans, and I'll whip any other thousand men on the globe!

The brave man, inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts her in the hour of danger.