Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it and inscribed for our motto: 'Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever,' and exclaim, 'Christ first, our country next!'

Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide.

I have lived among negroes, all my life, and I am for this Government with slavery under the Constitution as it is. I am for the Government of my fathers with negroes. I am for it without negroes. Before I would see this Government destroyed I would send every negro back to Africa, disintegrated and blotted out of space

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

When I die, I desire no better winding sheet than the Stars and Stripes, and no softer pillow than the Constitution of my country.

Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests.

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.