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

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.

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

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

My agency in promoting the passage of the National Bank Act was the greatest financial mistake of my life. It has built up a monopoly, which affects every interest in the country. It should be repealed, but before that can be accomplished, the people will be arrayed on one side and the banks on the other, in a contest such as we have never before seen in this country.

The legal tender quality [of money] is only valuable for the purposes of dishonesty.

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.