Time is too short for me, rather than too long.

If the day was forty-eight hours, instead of twenty-four, I could employ them all, if I had but eyes and hands to read and write.

The Emperor Napoleon, with all his power, could neither control the elements nor the passions of mankind.

For his own part, since he had been at the head of affairs, he could sincerely protest one wish had been at the bottom of all his policy, and the aim of all his labors,--and that was universal peace.

If we now give up that, how will it be possible to devise any regulation, depending upon the performance of another state, which will be thought as efficacious as that we have in our own hands?

Adams replied, "that he understood his lordship perfectly; but what he asserted was his profound conviction that he was mistaken in point of fact.

Adams replied, "That may be; but there is a very material distinction between giving encouragement and doing nothing to prevent them.

We require five years' residence in the United States, two years of notice in a court of record, and a certificate of character, before the act of naturalization is granted.

Our government certainly gave no encouragement to this; neither did our merchants, who would surely have engaged their seamen at lower wages, if possible.

The wages in the king's ships are much lower, and numbers of British seamen, accordingly, find employment on board American vessels; but encouragement from the American government they never had in any manner.

They were merely not excluded; and even now, in making the proposal to exclude them, it is not from any change of policy, but solely for the purpose of giving satisfaction to Great Britain, and of stopping the most abundant source of…

Adams said, with regard to his proposal of excluding each other's seamen, "that he was not prepared to say that an article could not be framed by which the parties might stipulate the principle of mutual exclusion, without at all affecting…

If it is a mere agreement of mutual exclusion, tending to diminish the occasion for exercising the right of search, and undoubtedly if it should prove effectual, it would in the end operate as an inducement to forbear the exercise of the…

Adams had talents, integrity, fidelity to his country, and devotion to the fulfilment of official duty, in which he had no superior.

Adams remarked: "Whether it is for my own good is known only to God.

Being asked by one of them whether it would not be advisable to expose the conduct and motives of rival statesmen, in the newspapers, he answered explicitly in the negative, saying: "The execution of my duties is the only answer I can give…

My business is to serve the public to the best of my abilities in the station assigned to me, and not to intrigue for my own advancement.

I never, by the most distant hint to any one, expressed a wish for any public office, and I shall not now begin to ask for that which, of all others, ought to be most freely and spontaneously bestowed.

Adams declared himself against such recognition, as it would interfere with a negotiation with Spain for the purchase of the Floridas.

But, as we have made it legislative, whenever secrecy is necessary for an operation of the executive involving the question of peace and war, Congress must pass a secret law to give the President power.

Now, secrecy is contrary to one of the first principles of legislation, but the absurdity flows from having given to Congress, instead of the executive, the power of declaring war.

If they avow and approve Jackson's conduct, they incur the double responsibility of having made a war against Spain, in violation of the constitution, without the authority of Congress.

If they disavow him, they must give offence to his friends, encounter the shock of his popularity, and have the appearance of truckling to Spain.

His only resource was to pursue his course according to his own sense of right, and abide by the consequences.

These have been, through life, perpetual admonitions to do nothing unworthy of it.