Government as well as religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people.

I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens . . . There has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends and books.

An industrious farmer occupies a more dignified place in the scale of beings...than a lazy lounger...too proud to work, and drawing out a miserable existence by eating on that surplus of other men's labor.

Trial by jury is part of the bright constellation which leads to peace, liberty and safety.

What justice would there be to take this life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.

Agreeable society is the first essential in constituting the happiness and of course the value of our existence.