Such trust and confidence reposed in me by the people of Ohio, through their chosen representatives, imposes upon me an obligation of duty and honor, more sacred than any words or promises can create.

And now, gentlemen, for the future term of service to which you have elected me, I can only, with increased experience, do what I have done in the past, and, with every motive that can influence any man, seek to preserve the favor and…

I accept the office as a trust to be performed under the active vigilance of political adversaries and the partial scrutiny of friends, but with the sole object of promoting the honor and prosperity of the United States.

I can have no motive of selfishness or ambition to turn me from a faithful performance of every duty attached to the office.

I assure you, gentlemen, that, without recalling that I am elected by a party, I will go back to Washington with the earnest desire to perform the duties that you have assigned me, with the hope to contribute, to the best of my abilities…

Ohio can justly claim to be the equal of any other in the sisterhood of states, central in location, rich in resources, the common pathway of all the states, containing over three millions of people as happy in their surroundings as those…

We must do our part to advance and improve our condition by wise legislation and by the moral influences of education and religion.

Some guards against fraud at elections have been adopted, notably the Australian ballot, but the best security is to impress succeeding generations with the vital importance of honest elections, and to punish with relentless severity all…

God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.

You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors.

You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend' it.

Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the…

I can assure you that no recent event has given me so much sincere gratification as your election, which I think a most worthy reward to a faithful public servant.

S., but still I regret that you have left the House where I think you might have rendered more important services to your country than you will find opportunity to do in the Senate.

Our tariff bill is unfortunate in being launched at this time, as it will be made the scape-goat of all difficulties.

I had, however, before my election, witnessed, with deep humiliation, the Senate debates, feeling that the Republican Senators were too timid in the steps taken to purge that body of persons whom I regarded as traitors.

These and other declarations I thought should have been promptly resented by the immediate expulsion of these Senators.

Wigfall, of Texas, though his state had seceded, was permitted to linger in the Senate and to attend executive sessions, where he was not only a traitor but a spy.

His rude and brutal language and conduct should have excluded him from the Senate in the early days of the session, but he was permitted to retire without censure, after a long debate upon the terms of his proposed expulsion.

Indeed, the division of the Democratic party on precisely the same question that separated the Republican party from the Democratic party made its defeat certain.

The disorders of the last winter, and the fear of their renewal, have, without doubt, induced a good many citizens to vote for the Republican ticket.

With a pretty good knowledge of the material of our House, I would far prefer that any one of the candidates be elected by the people rather than allow the contest to be determined by Congress.

If they believe their own newspapers, or, what is far worse, the lying organs of the Democratic party in the free states, they have just cause to think so.