William Woods Holden

"Let us welcome capital and immigration, furnishing as they will be the indispensable means to our progress and prosperity. Prejudices growing out of nativity, or out of the rebellion, are not worthy to be cherished."

"I love my State, because her people have been good and kind to me, and because her sky is above my home, as it will be above my grave."

"In the allotments of Providence we have been placed in a pleasant and beautiful country—a country washed on either hand by the waters of the circling seas, and teeming with all the elements of prosperity and power. This glorious country—this chosen seat of science and of art—this happy and peculiar residence of civil and religious liberty, has been won for us by the constancy and courage of our ancestors; it is the birth-place of blood and battle and prolonged disaster; and it is ours to defend, ours to enjoy, and ours to transmit in untarnished splendor to posterity."