Gentlemen, you may soon have the alternative to live as slaves or die as free men

Whoever commits a crime strengthens his enemy.

The principle of my political life ... is that all amelioration and improvements in political institutions can be obtained by persevering in a perfectly peaceable and legal course, and cannot be obtained by forcible means, or if they could be got by forcible means, such means create more evils than they cure, and leave the country worse than they found it.

Every religion is good—every religion is true to him who in his good caution and conscience believes it.

My days – the blossom of my youth and the flower of my manhood – have been darkened by the dreariness of servitude. In this my native land – in the land of my sires – I am degraded without fault as an alien and an outcast.

No man was ever a good soldier but the man who goes into the battle determined to conquer, or not to come back from the battle field (cheers). No other principle makes a good soldier.

I will go on quietly and slowly, but I will go on firmly, and with a certainty of success.