There is nothing left to do but get drunk.

I can express no better hope for my country than that the kind Providence which smiled upon our fathers may enable their children to preserve the blessings they have inherited.

I never justify, sustain, or in any way or to any extent uphold this cruel, heartless, aimless unnecessary war.

In a body [like Congress] where there are more than one hundred talking lawyers, you can make no calculation upon the termination of any debate.

You have summoned me in my weakness. You must sustain me in your strength.

In expressing briefly my views upon an important subject which has recently agitated the nation..., I fervently hope that the question is at rest and that no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our institutions.

I speak of the war as fruitless; for it is clear that, prosecuted upon the basis of the proclamations of September 22d and September 24th, 1862, prosecuted, as I must understand these proclamations, to say nothing of the kindred blood which has followed, upon the theory of emancipation, devastation, subjugation, it cannot fail to be fruitless in every thing except the harvest of woe which it is ripening for what was once the peerless republic.