Salmon P. Chase quotes

Salmon P. Chase was an American politician and jurist, known for his strong anti-slavery stance and service as Treasury Secretary during the Civil War. As Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, he presided over several important cases during the Reconstruction era. He played a key role in shaping American financial policy and advancing civil rights. Here are 14 of his quotes:

The way to resumption is to resume.

Salmon P. Chase

True democracy makes no enquiry about the color of skin, or the place of nativity, whereever it sees man, it recognizes a being endowed by his Creator with original inalienable rights.

Salmon P. Chase

No more slave States; no slave Territories.

Salmon P. Chase

Once I should have been, if not satisfied, partially, at least, contented with suffrage for the intelligent and those who have been soldiers; now I am convinced that universal suffrage is demanded by sound policy and impartial justice.

Salmon P. Chase

A resignation is a grave act; never performed by a right minded man without forethought or with reserve.

Salmon P. Chase

What you have said, Mr. President, fully satisfies me that you have given to every proposition which has been made, a kind and candid consideration. And you have now expressed the conclusion to which you have arrived, clearly and distinctly.

Salmon P. Chase

All men are born equally free.

Salmon P. Chase

When Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the state. The Act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final.

Salmon P. Chase

Congress was right in not limiting, by its reconstruction acts, the right of suffrage to whites; but wrong in the exclusion from suffrage of certain classes of citizens and all unable to take its prescribed retrospective oath, and wrong also in the establishment of despotic military governments for the States and in authorizing military commissions for the trial of civilians in time of peace. There should have been as little military government as possible; no military commissions; no classes excluded from suffrage; and no oath except one of faithful obedience and support to the Constitution and laws, and of sincere attachment to the constitutional Government of the United States.

Salmon P. Chase

What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?

Salmon P. Chase

The law of the Creator, which invests every human being with an inalienable title to freedom, cannot be repealed by any interior law which asserts that man is property.

Salmon P. Chase

I never refused my help to any person black or white; and I liked the office nonetheless because there were neither fees nor salary connected with it.

Salmon P. Chase