Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.

When death comes, he respects neither age nor merit. He sweeps from the earthly existence the sick and the strong, the rich and the poor, and should teach us to live to be prepared for death.

I carried $5000 when I went to Washington. I returned with barely $90 in our pockets.

We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.

The mischief springs from the power which the monied interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges which they have succeeded in obtaining, and unless you become more watchful in your states and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that the most important powers of government have been given or bartered away.

If in madness of delusion, anyone shall lift his parricidal hand against this blessed union, the arms of thousands will be raised to save it, and the curse of millions will fall upon the head which may have plotted its destruction.

The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.