A representative form of government rests nor more on political contributions than on those laws which regulate the descent and transmission of property.

Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered; and the diffusion of knowledge, so astonishing in the last half-century, has rendered innumerable minds, variously gifted by nature, competent to be competitors or fellow-workers on the theatre of intellectual operation.

Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves.

A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.

A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils.

There is something on earth greater than arbitrary or despotic power. The lightning has its power, and the whirlwind has its power, and the earthquake has its power; but there is something among men more capable of shaking despotic thrones than lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake, and that is, the excited and aroused indignation of the whole civilized world.

No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?