The constitution has divided the powers of government into three branches, Legislative, Executive and Judiciary, lodging each with a distinct magistracy. The Legislative it has given completely to the Senate and House of Representatives. It has declared that the Executive powers shall be vested in the President, submitting special articles of it to a negative by the Senate, and it has vested the Judiciary power in the courts of justice, with certain exceptions also in favor of the Senate.

The Habeas Corpus secures every man here, alien or citizen, against everything which is not law, whatever shape it may assume.

There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy - the most sublime and benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man - endeavored to crush your well-earned & well-deserved fame.

I believe in both a creative and personal God, a divinely ordered universe, that man has an innate moral sense, and that Jesus was a great moral teacher, perhaps the greatest the world has witnessed.

The difficulty is no longer to find candidates for the offices, but offices for the candidates.

It is my disposition to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself.