George F. Hoar

He had a delightful and original literary quality which, if the lines of his life had been cast amid other scenes than the tempest of a great Revolution and Civil War, might have made him a dreamer like Montaigne; and a chivalrous quality…

He was, in his time, I think, the ablest representative, certainly among the ablest, of the opinions opposed to mine.

He voted against the free coinage of silver in spite of the fact that the people of his State earnestly favored it, and against the express instructions of its Legislature.

He knew very well that the cause of the South, as he would have called it, and the cause of the Democratic Party itself, would not be promoted by a new civil convulsion, still less by any breach of faith.

His English style, both in conversation and in public speaking, was fresh and original, well adapted to keep his hearers expectant and alert, and to express the delicate and subtle shades of meaning that were required for the service of…

They never said anything worth quoting, and never did anything that any other equally good and sensible man would not have done in their place.

You could not read the story of their public career without going to sleep.

I know men who have been in public office for more than a generation, who have had enormous power and responsibility, to whom the country is indebted for safety and happiness, who never said a foolish thing, and rarely ever when they had…

The newspaper, and the telegraph, and the telephone, and the constant dissemination of news, the public library and the common school and college mix up all together and tend to make us, with some rare and delightful exceptions, eminently…

It is still more true of the Englishmen of our time.

Yet there is a good deal of truth in what he says of the Americans of our time.

But I think, on the whole, that I should rather have the pair of intellectual eyes which can see Homer as he saw him, than any other mental quality I can think of.

He was industrious, wise, conservative, courteous, and fair, a most admirable lawyer, full of public spirit, well acquainted with the mechanism of the Government, and doing always much more than his full share of the work of the Committee…

I should like to put on record my great esteem for his character as a man, and the excellence of his service as a Senator.

I had no political sympathy with Senator Hill, still less with the claim often imputed to the Senate by writers of newspapers, but of which I have never seen the slightest evidence, that Senators have the right to dictate such appointments.

On the other hand, the list of Presidents of the Senate contains few names of any considerable distinction.

Our Secretaries of State, with rare exceptions, have been among the very ablest public men of the country.

On the other hand, the Secretary of State is always a member of the party that has prevailed in the last election, and is usually the member of the party, next to the President himself, highest in its confidence.

In case of removal, death, resignation or inability of both the President and the Vice-President of the United States, the President of the Senate, or, if there is none, then the Speaker of the House, for the time being, shall act as…

I have also drawn and repeatedly procured the passage through the Senate of an amendment to the Constitution to protect the country against this danger.

That his is not an imaginary danger is shown by the fact of the well-known scheme to assassinate Lincoln on his way to the seat of the Government, and also by the fact that either the President or the Vice-President has died in office so…

Strictly construed, it is only in the case of the death, inability, etc., of a President, that a Vice-President can succeed, or in the case of the death, inability, etc., of the President and Vice-President both, that Congress has power to…

The public danger is found in the fact that there is no provision in the Constitution for the case where the President-elect dies before inauguration.

If that had been adopted, if the session were to begin in the middle of November, a week after the November elections-- which could be accomplished by an act of Congress--instead of thirteen weeks, to which the session is now limited…

I prepared a Constitutional amendment providing that the inauguration should take place on the last Thursday in April.