The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.

I can make a General in five minutes but a good horse is hard to replace.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could do for themselves.

When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.