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

I have reached the summit of my ambition.

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

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.

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

For myself, I care not whether treason be committed North or South; he that is guilty of treason is entitled to a traitor's fate!

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