I feel incompetent to perform duties...which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.

I have been almost overwhelmed by the announcement of the sad event [Lincoln's assassination] which has so recently occurred. I feel incompetent to perform duties so important and responsible as those which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.

Whenever you hear a man prating about the Constitution, spot him as a traitor.

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

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

I have performed my duty to my God, my country, and my family. I have nothing to fear in approaching death. To me it is the mere shadow of God's protecting wing . . . Here I will rest in quiet and peace beyond the reach of calumny's poisoned shaft, the influence of envy and jealous enemies, where treason and traitors or State backsliders and hypocrites in church can have no peace.

If the rabble were lopped off at one end and the aristocrat at the other, all would be well with the country.