Gentlemen, the character of Washington is among the most cherished contemplations of my life. It is a fixed star in the firmament of great names, shining without twinkling or obscuration, with clear, steady, beneficent light.

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

Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of circumstances, are often justifiable.

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 contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.

America has furnished to the world the character of Washington. And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.

On the diffusion of education among the people rest the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.