"I certainly had no right to make aggressive war upon any State, and I am perfectly satisfied that the Constitution has wisely withheld that power even from Congress."
"Entertaining this conviction, I refrained even from sending reenforcements to Major Anderson, who commanded the forts in Charleston Harbor, until an absolute necessity for doing so should make itself ..."
"My province is to execute and not to make the laws."
"In all its various bearings, therefore, I commend the question to Congress as the only human tribunal under Providence possessing the power to meet the existing emergency."
"My opinion remains unchanged that justice as well as sound policy requires us still to seek a peaceful solution of the questions at issue between the North and the South."
"I possess no dispensing power."
"I therefore appeal through you to the people of the country to declare in their might that the Union must and shall be preserved by all constitutional means."
"In view of this fact it was deemed preferable to instruct our new minister to negotiate a new treaty which should omit the objectionable second article and also the few words of the twenty-eighth arti..."
"I transmit, for the consideration of the Senate with a view to ratification, a convention for the adjustment of claims of citizens of the United States against the Government of the Republic of Costa ..."
"In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 9th of April last, requesting information concerning the African slave trade, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the..."
"My prayer to God is that He would preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all generations."
"the country has been eminently prosperous in all its material interests."