Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace

I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.

It is my disposition to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself.

One insult pocketed soon produces another.

During the late war I had an infallible rule for deciding what Great Britain would do on every occasion. It was, to consider what they ought to do, and to take the reverse of that as what they would assuredly do, and I can say with truth that I was never deceived.

I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the Union into two or more parts.

This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

The evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come.