The dominion which the banking institutions have obtained over the minds of our citizens...must be broken, or it will break us.

Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.

To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.

I cannot live without books.

I sincerely join you in abjuring all political connection with every foreign power; and tho I cordially wish well to the progress of liberty in all nations, and would forever give it the weight of our countenance, yet they are not to be touched without contamination from their other bad principles. Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being.