Who will show me any Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life, itself, whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it? ... A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men.

The people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.

If all my talents and powers were to be taken from me by some unscrutable Providence, and I had my choice of keeping but one, I would unhesitatingly ask for be allowed to keep the Power of Speaking, for through it I would quickly recover all the rest.

A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils.

How little do they see what really is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems.

Let our object be - our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. And by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument - not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of Peace, and of Liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever.

Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital.