Chief Justice Chase, with the three Democratic Justices held the Legal Tender Law unconstitutional, and declared that a law making anything but gold or silver legal tender for debts was neither appropriate nor plainly adapted to carrying…

It is the fashion still, in some quarters, to speak, in spite of the decisions of the Supreme Court and the numerous State courts, to which I have referred, as if it were too clear for argument that Congress had no right to make the…

They are of that class of political philosophers who are never trusted by their countrymen to deal with authority with any practical question either legislative, administrative, or judicial.

It is a dangerous power, like the power of suspending the writ of Habeas corpus, or the power of declaring war, or the power of reckless and extravagant public expenditure, never to be exercised if it can possibly be helped.

I think the American people have, in general, settled down on this as the reasonable view, in spite of the clamor of the advocates of fiat money on the one side, and the extreme strict constructionists on the other.

I have often said that there were four men who honored me with their friendship, whose counsel I liked to get under any difficult public responsibility, and that when these four men approved or agreed with anything I myself said or did, I…

It would have been better to say that, although I did care very much what the rest of mankind thought, I knew that when these men were on my side, the wisdom and conscience of Massachusetts would be there also.

Each of them had a great part in the overthrow of the political forces that were on the side of slavery, and in the triumphant overthrow of the combination which would, if successful, have corrupted Massachusetts and made of her the worst…

He was the greatest organizer of righteousness in his generation.

In every generation it had contained men of large influence in the Commonwealth, who had kept alive the interest of the people in public affairs.

The people were fond of discussing public questions, not only in town meeting, but in neighborhood gatherings and debating societies.

He was never better pleased than when, without prospect of gain for himself, he was employing his talents in the protection of poor and honest men against fraud and oppression.

He was early an anti-slavery man, and one of the founders of the Free Soil Party.

But he was by no means a fossil conservative lagging in the rear of progress.

He marched just as far forward in the column as he was sure it could command the ground.

Thus he espoused the anti-slavery movement in politics in its germinal stage, and became one of the most sagacious and efficient organizers of the Republican Party in his native State.

He was a member of that absolute democracy, the old-fashioned New England country town, where character and worth were the only titles to respect in the community, where the son of a President or the son of a Senator or of a Governor stood…

He was soaked in Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, a soaking which has somewhat the same effect on the moral and mental fibre that seven years in a tanner's vat used to have upon sole leather.

But he believed in those things because they were, in his judgment, essential to the accomplishment of the highest results in the country and in the Commonwealth.

He was absolutely incorruptible, either by money or by office.

He was a man of clean hands and a pure heart.

He used to speak with infinite scorn of settling questions of righteousness by a show of hands.

But he never was contented until he had changed or helped to change that minority into a majority.

He believed that the highest human occupation was to take a share in the leadership and direction of a self- governing people.

He has fallen at the very gate of an honorable and eminent career, and a thousand hopes are buried in his grave.