States Rights died at Appomattox.

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.

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

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

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The law of the Creator, which invests every human being with an inalienable title to freedom, cannot be repealed by any interior law which asserts that man is property.