What you have said, Mr. President, fully satisfies me that you have given to every proposition which has been made, a kind and candid consideration. And you have now expressed the conclusion to which you have arrived, clearly and distinctly.

The way to resumption is to resume.

True Democracy makes no enquiry about the color of the skin, or the place of nativity. Wherever it sees a man, it recognizes a being endowed by his Creator with original inalienable rights

If Congress sees fit to impose a capitation, or other direct tax, it must be laid in proportion to the census; if Congress determines to impose duties, imposts, and excises, they must be uniform throughout the United States. These are not strictly limitations of power. They are rules prescribing the mode in which it shall be exercised... This review shows that personal property, contracts, occupations, and the like have never been regarded by Congress as proper subjects of direct tax.

A resignation is a grave act; never performed by a right-minded man without forethought or with reserve.

Once I should have been, if not satisfied, partially, at least, contented with suffrage for the intelligent and those who have been soldiers; now I am convinced that universal suffrage is demanded by sound policy and impartial justice.

What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?