No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.

It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.

Avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, we should remember also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it

My death has not yet quite arrived, but it is near and inevitable as night follows day.

Peace with all the world, is my sincere wish.

In the discharge of this trust I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed toward the organization and administration of the Government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable.

I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation had a right to intermeddle in the internal concerns of another; that every one had a right to form and adopt whatever government they liked best to live under themselves.