There are two ways of establishing a proposition. One is by trying to demonstrate it upon reason, and the other is to show that great men in former times have thought so and so, and thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority. Now, if Judge Douglas will demonstrate somehow that this is popular sovereignty— the right of one man to make a slave of another, without any right in that other, or anyone else to object—demonstrate it as Euclid demonstrated propositions— there is no objection. But when he comes forward, seeking to carry a principle by bringing it to the authority of men who themselves utterly repudiate that principle, I ask that he shall not be permitted to do it.

—Speech of Abraham Lincoln in Columbus, Ohio, September 1859

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Photo : /u/grgathegoose

The College Mathematics Journal, Volume 44, Number 2, March 2013