Andrew Johnson Quotes

If you always support the correct principles then you will never get the wrong results!

If blacks were given the right to vote, that would place every splay-footed, bandy-shanked, hump-backed, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, woolly-headed, ebon-colored in the country upon an equality with the poor white man.

I have lived among negroes, all my life, and I am for this Government with slavery under the Constitution as it is. I am for the Government of my fathers with negroes. I am for it without negroes. Before I would see this Government destroyed I would send every negro back to Africa, disintegrated and blotted out of space

When I die, I desire no better winding sheet than the Stars and Stripes, and no softer pillow than the Constitution of my country.

Washington, DC is 12 square miles bordered by reality.

The life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence of its citizens.

The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people.

Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide.

I have been almost overwhelmed by the announcement of the sad event [Lincoln's assassination] which has so recently occurred. I feel incompetent to perform duties so important and responsible as those which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.

Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it and inscribed for our motto: 'Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever,' and exclaim, 'Christ first, our country next!'

Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects.

Let them impeach and be damned.

If I am to be shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.

It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.

Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.

I realized, there are people out there who can beat me, want to beat me. And unless I continue to innovate and evolve, I am going to learn a painful lesson from someone who has.

Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests.

Whenever you hear a man prating about the Constitution, spot him as a traitor.

It is our sacred duty to transmit unimpaired to our posterity the blessings of liberty which were bequeathed to us by the founders of the Republic.

I feel incompetent to perform duties...which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.

Duties have been mine; consequences are God's.

There are some who lack confidence in the integrity and capacity of the people to govern themselves. To all who entertain such fears I will most respectfully say that I entertain none. If man is not capable, and is not to be trusted with the government of himself, is he to be trusted with the government of others? Who, then, will govern? The answer must be, Man - for we have no angels in the shape of men, as yet, who are willing to take charge of our political affairs.

I never thought I would be impeached.

I have reached the summit of my ambition.

For myself, I care not whether treason be committed North or South; he that is guilty of treason is entitled to a traitor's fate!