I think it eminently proper that a president should retire from active politics, and equally proper that he should be able to live in quiet independence.

I formed, in early life, two purposes to which I have inflexibly adhered, under some very strong pressure from warm personal friends. They were, first, never to be a second in a duel; and, second, never to go security for another man's debts.

The nations of Europe constitute a federative league, a commonwealth of nations which, though it has no central head, is so intimate and elaborate as to subject the action, and sometimes even the internal affairs, of each to surveillance and intervention on the part of all the others.

The very first act of the Confederate Government was to send commissioners to Washington to make terms of peace, and to establish relations of amity between the two sections.

Campaign ads are the backbone of American democracy if American democracy suffered a gigantic spinal injury.

I think it's the height of patriotism to continue to exercise your right as a citizen and to hold your government to account. Isn't that what the very essence of democracy is about?

We have investigative staff who are charged by law and this committee under the Constitution of the United States has a responsibility, taxpayers' money, and an agency which we fund from the government, they bought weapons, we believe and we think that - I don't know who did what.

One thing I have learned in my time in politics is that if one of the parties is shameless, the other party cannot afford to be spineless.