Let me tell you what is coming.... Your fathers and husbands, your sons and brothers, will be herded at the point of the bayonet... You may, after the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and of thousands of lives, as a bare possibility, win Southern independence...but I doubt it.

I beseech those whose piety will permit them reverently to petition, that they will pray for this union, and ask that He who buildeth up and pulleth down nations will, the mercy preserve and unite us. For a Nation divided against itself cannot stand. I wish, if this Union must be dissolved, that its ruins may be the monument of my grave, and the graves of my family. I wish no epitaph to be written to tell that I survive the ruin of this glorious Union.

I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man.

All new states are invested, more or less, by a class of noisy, second-rate men who are always in favor of rash and extreme measures, but Texas was absolutely overrun by such men.

Texas can make it without the United States, but the United States cannot make it without Texas

I have ever been opposed to banks, - opposed to internal improvements by the general government, - opposed to distribution of public lands among the states, - opposed to taking the power from the hands of the people, - opposed to special monopolies, - opposed to a protective tariff, - opposed to a latitudinal construction of the constitution, - opposed to slavery agitation and disunion. This is my democracy. Point to a single act of my public career not in keeping with these principles.

My God, is it possible that all the people have gone mad? The civil war now being inaugurated will be as horrible as his Satanic Majesty could desire.