My principle is to do whatever is right, and leave consequences to him who has the disposal of them.

It is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.

The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.

I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries of comforts of life.

Never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw even an elemental trait of painting or sculpture.

Although we are free by the law, we are not so in practice.

All the capital employed in paper speculation is barren and useless, producing, like that on a gaming table, no accession to itself, and is withdrawn from commerce and agriculture where it would have produced addition to the common mass It nourishes in our citizens habits of vice and idleness instead of industry and morality It has furnished effectual means of corrupting such a portion of the legislature as turns the balance between the honest voters whichever way it is directed.