The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people.

If you always support the correct principles then you will never get the wrong results!

If blacks were given the right to vote, that would place every splay-footed, bandy-shanked, hump-backed, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, woolly-headed, ebon-colored in the country upon an equality with the poor white man.

There are no good laws but such as repeal other laws.

If I am to be shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.

I hold it the duty of the executive to insist upon frugality in the expenditure, and a sparing economy is itself a great national source.

The homestead policy was established only after long and earnest resistance; experience proves its wisdom. The lands in the hands of industrious settlers, whose labor creates wealth and contributes to the public resources, are worth more to the United States than if they had been reserved as a solitude for future purchasers.