The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.

We have already given in example one effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.

Experience has proved to us that a dollar of silver disappears for every dollar of paper emitted.

I love peace, and am anxious that we should give the world still another useful lesson, by showing to them other modes of punishing injuries than by war, which is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.

We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from experience. We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities.