Whether the Union stands or falls, I believe the profession of arms will henceforth be more desirable and more respected than it has been hitherto.

Without security, civilization is cramped and dwarfed. Without security, there can be no freedom. Nor shall I say too much, when I declare that security, guarded of course by its offspring, freedom, is the true end and aim of government.

The thought of going abroad makes my heart leap.

Nothing from man's hands, nor law, nor constitution, can be final. Truth alone is final.

Can there be in our age any peace that is not honorable, any war that is not dishonorable?

War is a positive, precise and specific evil, of gigantic proportions ...making within the sphere of its influence all true grandeur impossible.

The highest greatness, surviving time and stone, is that which proceeds from the soul of man. Monarchs and cabinets, generals and admirals, with the pomp of court and the circumstance of war, in the lapse of time disappear from sight; but the pioneers of truth, though poor and lowly, especially those whose example elevates human nature, and teaches the rights of man, so that "a government of the people, by the people, for the people, may not perish from the earth;" such a harbinger can never be forgotten, and their renown spreads co-extensive with the cause they served so well.