Free Republic

It was impossible to miss how Kamala Harris, like Joe Biden, refused to answer questions about their plans to expand the Supreme Court. But she also misrepresented history. Harris claimed at the VP debate that Abraham Lincoln refused to nominate a candidate for Chief Justice in October 1864 because “Honest Abe said, it’s not the right thing to do” and wanted the people to vote first. Lincoln, of course, said no such thing. He sent no nominee to the Senate in October 1864 because the Senate was out of session until December. He sent a nominee the day after the...

On July 4, 1864, four days after President Abraham Lincoln had surprised him by accepting his resignation, Treasury secretary Salmon P. Chase confided to his diary, “I am too earnest, too antislavery … [and] too radical.” Chase surely possessed each of these attributes – in excess – but they had little to do with his unexpected exit from Lincoln’s “team of rivals.” Rather, it was much more personal. Chase’s oft-repeated threat to quit had tested the forbearance of a beleaguered president once too often. Out of patience, Lincoln ended his tenure with the observation that “you and I have reached...