Character is the only secure foundation of the state.

Our country represents nothing but peaceful intentions toward all the earth, but it ought not to fail to maintain such a military force as comports with the dignity and security of a great people.

[The reason a man has] so much trouble with the Senate is that there isn't a man in the Senate who doesn't think he is better suited to be President than the President, and thinks he might have been President except for luck.

The suggestion of denying any measure of their full political rights to such a great group of our population as the colored people is one which, however it might be received in some other quarters, could not possibly be permitted by one who feels a responsibility for living up to the traditions and maintaining the principles of the Republican Party. Our Constitution guarantees equal rights to all our citizens, without discrimination on account of race or color. I have taken my oath to support that Constitution.

I appeal to Amherst men to reiterate the Amherst doctrine that the man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due not scorn and blame but reverence and praise.

It is very difficult to reconcile the American ideal of a sovereign people capable of owning and managing their own government with an inability to own and manage their own business.

Work is not a curse; it is the prerogative of intelligence, the only means to manhood, and the measure of civilization.