He never lost his good nature, his courage, or his supreme confidence in the final triumph of truth.

He was contented to be responsible for one man; to cast his share of the vote of one State; to do his duty as he conceived it, and let other men do theirs as they saw it.

He never committed himself to the popular currents, nor studied the vanes to see how the winds were blowing, nor sounded the depths and the shallows before he decided on his own course.

He never troubled himself about majorities or administrations, still less about crowds or mobs or spasms of popular excitement.

He had, in a high degree, what Jeremy Taylor calls "the endearment of prudent and temperate speech.

He was one of the men that Washington would have loved and Washington would have leaned upon.

But the qualities which belonged to Washington belonged to him--prudence, modesty, sound judgement, simplicity, absolute veracity, absolute integrity, disinterestedness, lofty patriotism.

If he is not to be compared with Washington, he was at least worthy to be the countryman of Washington, and to hold a high place among the statesmen of the Republic which Washington founded.

Neither ambition nor hatred, nor the love of ease nor the greed of gain, nor the desire of popularity, nor the love of praise, nor the fear of unpopularity found a place in that simple and brave heart.

If we do not speak of him as a man of genius, he had that absolute probity and that sound common sense which are safer and better guides than genius.

These gifts are the highest ornaments of a noble and beautiful character; they are surer guides to success and loftier elements of true greatness than what is commonly called genius.

To do what is right argues superior taste as well as morals; and those whose practice is evil feel and inferiority of intellectual power and enjoyment, even where they take no concern for a principle.

Doing well has something more in it than the mere fulfilling of a duty.

It is a cause of a just sense of elevation of character; it clears and strengthens the spirits; it gives higher reaches of thought.

It is not because of his integrity alone that it relies on an honest man, but it has more confidence in his judgment and wise conduct, in the long run, than in the schemes of those of greater intellect who go at large without any landmarks…

So that virtue seems of a double nature, and to stand oftentimes in the place of what we call talent.

No State ever mourned a nobler son; no son was ever mourned by a nobler State.

His eyes in his old age looked undimmed upon the greatness and the glory of his country, in achieving which he had borne so large a part.

He was ready, at the Department and on the floor of the Senate, and wherever he could exert an influence to protect and baffle any attempt to wrong them.

His quiet and unpretending service to this unfortunate and oppressed race entitles him to a very high place in the affectionate remembrance of his countrymen.

The victorious Republic dealt justly and generously with the vanquished and misguided men who had assailed it and sought its destruction.

I thought that such a principle would be a great protection to such institutions in all future wars, that it would tend to heal the bitter recollections of the Civil War and the estrangements then existing between the sections of the…

One of them provides that an amendment to any bill may be laid on the table, on special motion, without carrying the bill itself with it.

The motion to lay on the table not being debatable, this enables the Senate to dispose promptly of a good many propositions, which otherwise would consume a good deal of time in debate.

If Senators are to be considered to any degree as ambassadors of their States, it would seem proper that they should not be compelled to hear any reproachful language about the State they represent.