"We cannot ask a man what he will do, and if we should, and he should answer us, we should despise him for it. Therefore we must take a man whose opinions are known."
— Opinion

January 1, 1970

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Belief
Original Language: English

Sources

President Abraham Lincoln, in conversation with George Sewall Boutwell concerning the nomination of Salmon P. Chase to the U.S. Supreme Court, reported by Boutwell in his Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, vol. 2, p. 29 (1902).