The day is not distant when we must bear and adopt [the abolition of slavery], or worse will follow.

While learning the language in France a young man's morals, health and fortune are more irresistibly endangered than in any country of the universe.

Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.

While old men feel sensibly enough their own advance in years, they do not sufficiently recollect it in those whom they have seenyoung.

I have now the gloomy prospect of retiring from office loaded with serious debts, which will materially affect the tranquility of my retirement.

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion... We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half, for each State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion.

I never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having never believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man.