You know I am given to antiquarian and genealogical pursuits. An old family letter is a delight to my eyes. I can prowl in old trunks of letters by the day with undiminished zest.

I too mean to be out of politics. The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment gives me the boon of equality before the law, terminates my enlistment, and discharges me cured.

My father and mother in 1817 were forty-nine days on the road with their emigrant wagons [from Vermont] to Ohio. More than two days for each hour that I spent in the same journey.

My only objection to the arrangements there is the two-in-a-bed system. It is bad. But let your words and conduct be perfectly pure - such as your mother might know without bringing a blush to your cheek. If not already mentioned, do not tell your mother of the doubling in bed.

The climate of Ohio is perfect, considered as the home of an ideal republican people. Climate has much to do with national character.... A climate which permits labor out-of-doors every month in the year and which requires industry to secure comfort--to provide food, shelter, clothing, fuel, etc.--is the very climate which secures the highest civilization.

No capitalists after any war were ever so well paid for money loaned to the nation that carried it on. No class of money-makers ever gained such prosperity by any other war, as our War for the Union brought to the money-getters of America. All this was due in great measure to the rank and file of the Union army. Now let no rich man haggle with a needy veteran of that war about his right to a pension!

It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times.