A history that should pursue all the subtle threads from end to end might be eminently valuable, but not as a tribute to peace and conciliation.

History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.

I saw in States' rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy.... Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.

Everybody likes to get as much power as circumstances allow, and nobody will vote for a self-denying ordinance.

A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.

Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.