While I concur with the Synod in the efficacy of prayer, and in the hope that our country may be preserved from the attacks of pestilence 'and that the judgments now abroad in the earth may be sanctified to the nations,' I am constrained to decline the designation of any period or mode as proper for the public manifestation of this reliance. I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

Hemans gallows ought to be the fate of all such ambitious men who would involve their country in civil wars, and all the evils in its train that they might rei…

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist und…

We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to in…

All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty.

Thank God, under our Constitution there was no connection between church and state.