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 It should be repealed, but before that can be accomplished, the people will be arrayed on one side and the banks on the other, in a contest such as we have never before seen in this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.

I never refused my help to any person black or white; and I liked the office nonetheless because there were neither fees nor salary connected with it.

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.

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

The way to resumption is to resume.

The law of the Creator, which invests every human being with an inalienable title to freedom, cannot be repealed by any interior law which asserts that man is property.

The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.