Guard against the prestige of great names; see that your judgments are your own; and do not shrink from disagreement; no trusting without testing

There are many things the government cant do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people. It cannot convert the people.

No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.

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.