Salmon P. Chase

(born Jan. 13, 1808, Cornish Township, N.H., U.S. — died May 7, 1873, New York, N.Y.) U.S. antislavery leader and sixth chief justice of the U.S. (1864 – 73). He practiced law in Cincinnati from 1830, defending runaway slaves and white abolitionists. He led the Liberty Party in Ohio from 1841 and helped found the Free Soil Party (1848) and the Republican Party (1854). He served in the U.S. Senate (1849 – 55, 1860 – 61) and was the first Republican governor of Ohio (1855 – 59). He served as secretary of the treasury under Pres. Abraham Lincoln (1861 – 64). Appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by Lincoln, he presided over the impeachment trial of Pres. Andrew Johnson and tried to protect the rights of blacks from infringement by state action.

For more information on Salmon Portland Chase, visit Britannica.com.

See also Chief Justice, Office of the

Bibliography

• Frederick J. Blue, Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics (1987).
• David Donald, ed., Inside Lincoln's Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase (1954)

— Harold M. Hyman

Chase, Salmon Portland (1808-73) statesman, antislavery leader, and chief justice of the United States, born in Cornish, New Hampshire. A founder of the Republican party, Chase was a four-time presidential candidate, a U.S. senator (1849-55, 1860-1), and governor of Ohio (1855-61). Chase advocated freed slaves' use as soldiers, access to land, and right to vote. As Abraham Lincoln's secretary of the Treasury (1861-64), Chase was responsible for financing a war of unprecedented scale. During his tenure he introduced paper money, established a national banking system, and regulated trade between the Union and the Confederacy. Appointed chief justice by Lincoln (1864-73), Chase supported universal male suffrage and opposed military government in the South.

In 1837 he became interested in the antislavery movement after defending in court the freedom of Matilda, whose master had brought her to Ohio. Chase maintained that slavery depended on local law for its enforcement because the framers of the Constitution had sought not to support it at the national level. On the basis of this analysis, he argued that no law outside of a slave state could support the enslavement of an individual; that is, that once a person had entered free territory, as Matilda had, that person reverted to his or her natural state of freedom. Because of his commitment to the legal defense of slaves, he became known as the “attorney general for fugitive slaves.”

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The American statesman Salmon Portland Chase (1808-1873) was an ardent advocate of African American rights. He was appointed secretary of the Treasury by President Lincoln, who later made him chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Salmon P. Chase was born at Cornish, N.H., on Jan. 13, 1808. He attended public school at Keene, N.H., and, for a time, a private school in Vermont. He established a reputation for good behavior, scholarly interest, and deep religious feelings. When he was 9 years old his father died, and soon he was placed under the stern direction of his uncle, Philander Chase, one of the great pioneer leaders in the American Episcopal Church.

Philander, "a harsh, autocratic, determined man of God," conducted a church school near Columbus, Ohio, where Salmon pursued classical and religious studies. When Philander, now Bishop Chase, became president of Cincinnati College, Salmon was his student. In less than a year, for some unexplained reason, Salmon left the college and entered Dartmouth College as a junior. He graduated in 1826 "without marked distinction." He had by this time decided to become a lawyer, not a clergyman, but he had not lost his religious devotion.

For a time Chase conducted a school for boys in Washington, D.C., and read law "under the nominal supervision" of William Wirt, one of the nation's best lawyers. He was admitted to the bar in December 1829.

Young Lawyer

As a practicing lawyer, Chase made his permanent home in Cincinnati. It was a wise choice. Located on the north bank of the Ohio River, with its busy western trade and with slave territory on the opposite bank, Cincinnati offered splendid opportunities to a young lawyer of ability and strong moral views. Chase's legal talents were quickly recognized, and soon he was being called the "attorney for runaway Negroes." His most famous case was the defense of John Vanzant, who had been arrested while carrying a number of Kentucky runaways to freedom under a load of hay. Chase and William H. Seward, as unpaid lawyers, carried Vanzant's case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where their eloquent appeals for minority rights on constitutional grounds attracted national attention. Chase's insistence that no claim to persons as property could be supported by any United States law won antislavery support among those who rejected William Lloyd Garrison's extreme militant views. It also served to advance Chase's political standing in Ohio and led to correspondence with such national antislavery figures as Charles Summer.

Meanwhile Chase's private life was filled with gloom. His first wife died a year after their marriage, his second after 5 years, and his third after 6 years. Of his six children, only two daughters grew to womanhood. The effects of death, always so near, deepened his religious fervor. Days spent in Bible reading and prayer, and soul torture for possible neglect of duty in not impressing others with the need of salvation, left a deep mark on the man.

Political Rise

As a young man, Chase had voted as a Whig, but when the Liberty party emerged, his strong antislavery feelings drew him into its ranks. He was active in its development but was always ready to change parties if slavery could be ended more quickly by another agency. In fact, as the said, he sympathized strongly with the Democratic party in "almost everything excepting its submission to slaveholding leadership and dictation."

This was good politics in the state of Ohio, where widely differing peoples and interests kept party lines fluid. When the Liberty party gave way to the Free Soil party in 1848, Chase cautiously followed and a year later was elected to the U.S. Senate by a coalition of Democrats and Free Soilers.

In the Senate, Chase worked "to divorce our National and State governments from all support of Slavery" and through constitutional means to "deliver our country from its greatest curse." He labored to unite all the antislavery groups in a futile effort to capture the Democratic party and to make it the champion of freedom. Chase viewed the steps leading to the Mexican War as a proslavery drive but supported war measures as an obligation to the soldiers. He backed the Wilmot Proviso, opposed the Compromise of 1850, and was one of the group that issued the "Appeal of the Independent Democrats," with its false charge that Stephen Douglas's Nebraska Bill had opened that territory to slavery.

Chase was important in creating the new Republican party. In his own state he molded dissenting groups into an efficient machine and in 1855 was elected governor. He was reelected in 1857 and, because of his antislavery political record, was widely considered as a presidential candidate. Because of his shifting political course, however, he could seldom count on solid support from the politicians in his own party. Apparent at the first Republican National Convention at Philadelphia in 1856, this became more clear at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in 1860. There, although a "favorite son" candidate, he could not muster a solid vote from his Ohio delegation. Yet Chase and his state were so important to the party that a place in Lincoln's Cabinet was a foregone conclusion. The same held true for William H. Seward and the state of New York. The difficulty was that each of these men thought of himself as superior to the other and even to Lincoln. Both wanted to head the Cabinet as secretary of state, and the rivalry continued even after Lincoln had named Seward to the State Department and made Chase secretary of the Treasury.

Secretary of the Treasury

Chase's task of directing the nation's finances during the Civil War was a difficult one. Vast sums of money had to be borrowed, bonds marketed, and the national currency kept as stable as possible. Interest rates soared; specie payments had to be suspended; and soon a resort to paper money was reluctantly accepted. Yet with the aid of banker Jay Cooke, Chase somehow met the crisis and capped his accomplishments by creating the national banking system, which opened a market for bonds and stabilized currency.

As a member of a Cabinet in which Seward attempted to play the part of "prime minister," Chase led the opposition. To check Seward, he demanded regular Cabinet meetings, gave guarded approval to the provisioning of Ft. Sumter, and openly criticized Seward's handling of foreign affairs. He was equally critical of Lincoln, whom he viewed as incompetent and confused. His main complaints were against the retention of Gen. George McClellan and the refusal to use Negro troops. His constant disagreement with administration policies gained him a following among the Radical Republican element in Congress. In 1862 this led to a Cabinet crisis.

A group of senators, influenced by Chase's complaints, held a secret caucus and drew up a document to be presented to the President, demanding "a change in and a partial reconstruction of the Cabinet." It was, in fact, an effort to remove Seward and to advance Chase. On learning of the plan, Seward sent his resignation to the President, who put it aside. Then, by bringing the protesters and the rest of the Cabinet together for a frank discussion, Lincoln skillfully led Chase to repudiate some of his charges. This hurt Chase with both friend and foe. The next morning he offered his own resignation. Lincoln now held both Seward's and Chase's resignations and, having gained the upper hand, refused to accept either.

As the war dragged on, Chase was increasingly convinced of the impossibility of Lincoln's reelection. The Emancipation Proclamation had been satisfactory as far as it went, he felt, but it had not gone far enough. A new leader with a new approach was needed. Chase decided that it was his duty to seek the Republican nomination. A group of Radical leaders issued a pamphlet declaring Chase as the man who best fit the party's needs. The Chase boom, however, collapsed as Lincoln's hold on the public became clear. This made Chase's place as a Cabinet member embarrassing, and soon Chase submitted his resignation. Lincoln accepted it.

Supreme Court Justice

In the campaign of 1864 Chase made several speeches for Lincoln, and when Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney died in October 1864, Lincoln appointed Chase to that important office. Chase presided over the Supreme Court during the troubled Reconstruction period. The important tasks were to restore the Southern judicial systems and to uphold the law against congressional invasion. Perhaps Chase best revealed his devotion to justice in his insistence on the judicial character of the impeachment proceedings against Lincoln's successor, President Andrew Johnson.

Meanwhile Chase retained his ambition to become president, and with the aid of his beautiful daughter Kate, he made strenuous but futile efforts to secure the Democratic nomination in 1868 and the Liberal Republican nomination in 1872. He died of a stroke in 1873.

Further Reading

David Donald, ed., Inside Lincoln's Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase (1954), includes notes, commentary, and an introduction which assesses Chase's life. Thomas Graham Belden and Marva Robins Belden, So Fell the Angels (1956), is a composite biography of Chase, his daughter, and her husband. Older but still useful biographies are Albert Bushnell Hart, Salmon Portland Chase (1899), and J. W. Schuckers, The Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase (1899).

Additional Sources

Blue, Frederick J., Salmon P. Chase: a life in politics, Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1987.

Hart, Albert Bushnell, Salmon P. Chase, New York: Chelsea House, 1980.

Niven, John, Salmon P. Chase: a biography, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

See also Chief Justice; Ex parte Milligan; Texas v. White

Sources

• Frederick J. Blue, Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1987)

Chase, Salmon Portland, 1808-73, American public official and jurist, 6th Chief Justice of the United States (1864-73), b. Cornish, N.H. Admitted to the bar in 1829, he defended runaway blacks so often that he became known as "attorney general for fugitive slaves." Chase became prominent in the Liberty party and later in the Free-Soil party and was elected by a coalition of Free-Soilers and antislavery Democrats to the U.S. Senate, where (1849-55) he eloquently opposed such proslavery measures as the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Chase was elected governor of Ohio in 1855 at the head of a Republican ticket that was dominated by Know-Nothings; by 1857, when he was reelected, he was a leading member of the new Republican party. He was a splendid figure of a man, a "sculptor's ideal of a President," and few Americans have ever gone after that high office with more determination-or less success. He sought the Republican nomination in 1860, but since he lacked the full support of even his own state's delegation and since many considered him an extreme abolitionist, his chance passed quickly.

Again elected to the Senate, Chase served only two days in Mar., 1861, before resigning to become Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury. In that difficult position he took part in framing for Congress the new fiscal legislation necessitated by the Civil War, collected new taxes, placed unprecedentedly large loans with reluctant investors, and directed vast expenditures. To assist in government financing and also to improve the status of the currency, he proposed the national bank system (established in Feb., 1863), which is generally considered his greatest achievement. Ambition and a high regard for his own worth made Chase a difficult man to work with; after refusing four previous attempts, Lincoln finally accepted Chase's resignation on June 29, 1864.

Chase failed in his effort to secure the presidential nomination, but he remained an important national figure, and on Dec. 6, 1864, after the death of Roger B. Taney, Lincoln appointed Chase Chief Justice of the United States. He took a moderate stand in most of the important Reconstruction cases. His dissenting opinion in the Slaughterhouse Cases subsequently became the accepted position of the courts as to the restrictive force of the Fourteenth Amendment. On the other hand, his decision (1870) in Hepburn v. Griswold (see Legal Tender cases) was soon reversed. For his fairness in presiding over the Senate in the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, he was furiously denounced by his old radical friends. Chase persisted in seeking the presidency, but neither the Democrats in 1868 nor the Liberal Republicans in 1872 were interested in him.

Bibliography

See biography by A. B. Hart (1899, repr. 1969); D. H. Donald, ed., Inside Lincoln's Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase (1954, repr. 1970); J. W. Schuckers, Life and Public Services of Salmon P. Chase (1874, repr. 1970).

Salmon Portland Chase served from 1864 to 1873 as the sixth chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was also a distinguished lawyer and politician, serving as U.S. senator from Ohio (1849-55 and 1860-61), governor of Ohio (1855-59), and secretary of the treasury (1861-64). Chase also sought the presidential nomination in every election between 1856 and 1872, even while sitting as chief justice. As a result, many criticized him for neglecting his judicial responsibilities in favor of his political ambitions. Despite his extrajudicial activities, Chase helped navigate the Supreme Court through the dangerous political waters of Reconstruction, preserving the Court's powers when a Radical Republican-dominated Congress sought to control both the president and the Supreme Court. As chief justice Chase presided over the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. Chase was an ardent opponent of slavery his entire life and in his last years on the Court fought against a narrow interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, an interpretation that he rightly surmised would allow future state legislatures to rescind the newly won rights of African Americans.

Chase was born January 13, 1808, in Cornish, New Hampshire, the eighth of eleven children in a family that had lived in New England since the 1600s. His father operated a tavern as well as a glass factory and distillery near Keene, New Hampshire, and died when Chase was nine years old. Chase had two prominent uncles who aided him in his father's absence: Dudley Chase, who served two terms as U.S. senator from Vermont (1813-17 and 1825-31), and Philander Chase, who became bishop of Ohio for the Episcopal Church and president of Cincinnati College. When he was twelve, Chase moved to Ohio to help on Philander Chase's farm. In return for Chase's work, his uncle taught him Greek, Latin, and mathematics in his church school. Chase attended Cincinnati College for a year then eventually returned to his family in New Hampshire and entered Dartmouth College, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1826.

After college Chase moved to Washington, D.C., where he studied law under Attorney General William Wirt. He passed the bar and returned to Cincinnati to set up a legal practice. In Cincinnati Chase's personal life was clouded by tragedy. He lost three wives between 1835 and 1852, each marriage cut short by death. He had one daughter by each of his last two wives. He remained single for the last part of his life and was a devoted father to his two daughters.

Chase strongly opposed slavery from his early years, a position that owed much to his deeply religious outlook. In Ohio he was nicknamed the Attorney General for Runaway Negroes for his defense of abolitionists who had aided runaway slaves from Kentucky. He even took two of these cases to the Supreme Court— Jones v. Van Zandt, 46 U.S. (5 How.) 215, 12 L. Ed. 122 (1847), and Moore v. Illinois, 55 U.S. (14 How.) 13, 14 L. Ed. 306 (1852)—both of which he lost. About his nickname, Chase commented that he "never refused … help to any person black or white; and liked the office nonetheless because there were neither fees nor salary connected with it."

In 1849 Chase was elected to the U.S. Senate as a member of the Free-Soil party, a party which sought to keep new states in the West free of slavery. In the Senate, he and CharlesSumner became leading spokesmen for the antislavery movement. He gained renown through his opposition to the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed each territory to conduct a popular vote deciding whether it would permit slavery or not. Shortly thereafter he helped found the antislavery Republican party and in 1855 he was elected governor of Ohio. He was considered for the 1856 Republican presidential nomination but was passed over and in February 1860 he was reelected to the U.S. Senate. In May of the same year he sought the presidential nomination at the Republican convention in Chicago. Chase and William H. Seward were considered the chief rivals for the nomination but on the third ballot Chase's supporters gave their votes to Abraham Lincoln, giving the man from Illinois the nomination. After his election, Lincoln offered Chase and Seward the respective posts of secretary of the treasury and secretary of state. Chase then gave up his seat as U.S. senator.

At the Treasury Chase faced the difficult task of financing a government engaged in a civil war. As part of this effort he helped establish a national banking system that gave the federal government its first effective national paper currency. Early in the war Chase also advised military leaders who sought guidance from Washington, D.C. Chase was often unhappy with the decisions of Lincoln and other members of the cabinet and resolved that he could do better as president. He therefore opposed Lincoln for the Republican presidential nomination in 1864. Chase had the support of the more liberal wing of the Republican party but he eventually withdrew his name from consideration, conceding to the more popular Lincoln. In June 1864, after several disagreements with Lincoln, Chase resigned from the cabinet.

Despite their differences, Lincoln admired Chase and in December 1864 he nominated Chase to succeed Roger B. Taney as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He nominated Chase with the expectation that Chase would sustain two extraordinary measures taken by the Union during the war—the emancipation of the slaves and the issuance of paper money to repay debt. Both measures had caused great controversy, and as a result many Americans had lost confidence in agencies of the federal government, including the Supreme Court.

Chase joined a Court with only three other justices who consistently supported Republican positions, Justices David Davis, Noah H. Swayne, and Samuel F. Miller, all appointed by Lincoln. The Court was sharply divided over the various issues surrounding Reconstruction, the period following the Civil War when the country attempted to rebuild itself and readmit the Southern states to the Union. The post-Civil War crisis deepened when Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, and Vice President Andrew Johnson became president.

Chase urged a moderate, conciliatory stance toward the defeated South, a stance that eventually alienated him from the Radical Republicans, a faction of the Republican party that sought to impose strict military measures and punitive new laws on the states of the former Confederacy. Like the Radical Republicans, Chase supported expanded freedoms for African Americans. Unlike them, however, he also supported such measures as ending military government in the South, pardoning Confederate leaders, and quickly restoring Southern states to the Union. Chase's moderation helped spare Jefferson Davis, president of the former Confederacy. After the war Davis had been imprisoned in Virginia, part of Chase's circuit, where the government hoped to try him for treason. Chase refused to hold a civil trial while the area was still under military rule. Although a grand jury indicted Davis for treason, no action was taken against him and eventually the government's case was dismissed.

Many of the Supreme Court's decisions during Chase's tenure involved the thorny issue of Reconstruction. In March 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, which divided the South into five districts and imposed military rule. Reconstruction involved new problems of constitutional interpretation as to the federal government's powers over the states. At issue were questions not only of states'rights but also of the status of freed slaves. In one early decision, Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2, 18 L. Ed. 284 (1866), Chase voted with the Court in challenging Congress over Reconstruction. The Court held that Congress could not authorize military trials where civil courts were still operating. The majority opinion warned of the military's "gross usurpation of power"—a direct challenge to the Reconstruction Acts passed by Congress. However, in later decisions Chase voted to uphold congressional laws pertaining to Reconstruction. In the 1867 Test Oath cases—Cummings v. Missouri, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 277, 18 L. Ed. 356, and Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 333, 18 L. Ed. 366—Chase disagreed with the Court's decision to strike down laws requiring that priests and lawyers swear oaths of loyalty to the Union. In his dissenting opinion, joined by Chase, Justice Miller declared that no punishment was inflicted by requiring such an oath and that Congress could impose such requirements. Chase considered Texas v. White, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 700, 19 L. Ed. 227 (1868), to be the most important case of his Supreme Court career. Chase, writing the Court's opinion, upheld the general principles of Reconstruction, asserting that Congress and not the Supreme Court possessed the authority to recognize state governments as legitimate.

When Southern states sought to make cases in court against executives of the federal government—including President Johnson and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton—Chase joined the majority in dismissing those cases, thereby aiding Congress in its Reconstruction fervor. In Mississippi v. Johnson, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 475, 18 L. Ed. 437 (1867), Mississippi, in the first court case ever to name the president of the United States as an individual party, attempted to prevent President Johnson from enforcing certain provisions of the Reconstruction Acts. Chase dismissed the case, holding that preventing the president from acting on congressional legislation would cause a "collision … between the executive and legislative departments of the government." This, in turn, would give the House grounds to sue for the president's impeachment. This opinion proved prophetic, of course, when Congress did attempt to impeach President Johnson.

Chase's public standing improved when he ably handled the impeachment trial of President Johnson in March 1868. The Radical Republican-dominated Congress had voted to bring impeachment proceedings against Johnson after he dismissed one of their favorite members of his cabinet, Secretary of War Stanton. The Senate sat as a court of impeachment with Chase presiding as judge. Chase frustrated Radical Republican aims by sticking to procedural rules and helping to bring about Johnson's acquittal, which passed the Senate by one vote. The public acclaim occasioned by his handling of the impeachment trial led Chase to make another try at the presidency in 1868. This time, however, Chase made known his desire to run as a Democratic candidate, largely because his moderate positions toward the South had endeared him to Democrats. His efforts failed.

Although the Supreme Court under Chase's leadership rarely questioned congressional Reconstruction measures after 1867, it did declare other federal legislation unconstitutional. Whereas before 1864 the Court had overturned acts of Congress only twice—in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 2 L. Ed. 60 (1803), and Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 15 L. Ed. 691 (1857)—between 1864 and 1873 it voided ten pieces of congressional legislation. These decisions included Hepburn v. Griswold, 75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 603, 19 L. Ed. 513 (1870), in which Chase questioned much of his earlier work for the Treasury when he declared the Legal Tender Acts unconstitutional. This decision created a temporary crisis of confidence in the national currency. The Court reversed this decision in 1871 after a change in membership, with Chase sticking to his views of two years earlier. Despite his participation in such judicial activism, Chase at other times advocated judicial restraint. In his opinion for the Licence Tax Cases, 72 U.S. (5 Wall.) 462, 18 L. Ed. 497 (1868), in which he upheld a law that taxed the sale of lottery tickets throughout the United States, Chase wrote:

This court can know nothing of public policy except from the Constitution and the laws, and the course of administration and decision. It has no legislative powers. It cannot amend or modify any legislative acts. It cannot examine questions as expedient or inexpedient, as politic or impolitic. Considerations of that sort must, in general, be addressed to the legislature. Questions of policy determined there are concluded here.

Ulysses S. Grant won the presidential election of 1868 and from that time on the power of Radical Republicanism began to wane. Grant's appointments made the Court a more conservative body. In the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 21 L. Ed. 394 (1873), Chase dissented from the Court's narrow interpretation of the FourteenthAmendment, which was passed in 1868 and sought to protect the rights of African Americans against infringements by state legislation. In its Slaughter-House decision, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges and Immunities Clause protected only a few select rights of national citizenship, such as the right to travel. The Court did not interpret the amendment as guaranteeing more fundamental rights, such as the right to vote. Chase objected that the Court's opinion jeopardized newly won freedoms for African Americans. It would take another one hundred years before the Court would reverse this narrow interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Chase suffered a series of crippling strokes beginning in 1870. Despite his failing health, his daughter Catherine Chase and other admirers put forth his name for the 1872 presidential nomination. As had happened each time before, his nomination came to nothing. He died May 7, 1873, after suffering a stroke while visiting his daughter in New York City, and was interred in Spring Grove Cemetary in Cincinnati. Although Chase did not achieve his highest goal of becoming president, he nevertheless held more high offices during his life than did any other Supreme Court justice besides James F. Byrnes and William H. Taft. More importantly, Chase successfully guided the Court through some of the most tumultuous years in the history of the nation. His actions as chief justice helped preserve the powers of the Supreme Court in the face of serious congressional challenges during the extraordinary years following the Civil War.

Salmon Portland Chase
6th Chief Justice of the United States
In office December 6, 1864[1] – May 7, 1873
Nominated by	Abraham Lincoln
Preceded by	Roger B. Taney
Succeeded by	Morrison R. Waite
25th United States Secretary of the Treasury
In office March 7, 1861 – June 30, 1864
President	Abraham Lincoln
Preceded by	John A. Dix
Succeeded by	William P. Fessenden
23rd Governor of Ohio
In office January 14, 1856 – January 9, 1860
Lieutenant	Thomas H. Ford (1856–1858) Martin Welker (1858–1860)
Preceded by	William Medill
Succeeded by	William Dennison Jr.
United States Senator from Ohio
In office March 4, 1849 – March 3, 1855
Preceded by	William Allen
Succeeded by	George E. Pugh
In office March 4 – March 7, 1861
Preceded by	George E. Pugh
Succeeded by	John Sherman
Personal details
Born	January 13, 1808 Cornish, New Hampshire, U.S.
Died	May 7, 1873 (aged 65) New York City, New York, U.S.
Political party	Free Soil, Liberty, Republican, Democrat
Spouse(s)	i) Katherine Jane Garmiss ii) Eliza Ann Smith iii) Sarah Bella Dunlop Ludlow[2]
Alma mater	Cincinnati College Dartmouth College
Profession	Politician, Lawyer, Judge
Religion	Episcopalian
Signature

Salmon Portland Chase (January 13, 1808 – May 7, 1873) was an American politician and jurist who served as U.S. Senator from Ohio and the 23rd Governor of Ohio; as U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln; and as the sixth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Chase was one of the most prominent members of the new Republican Party before becoming Chief Justice. Chase articulated the "Slave Power conspiracy" thesis well before Lincoln. He coined the slogan of the Free Soil Party, "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men." He devoted his energies to the destruction of what he considered the Slave Power – the conspiracy of Southern slave owners to seize control of the federal government and block the progress of liberty.

Contents

• 1 Early life and education
• 2 Entrance into politics
• 3 The Free Soil movement
• 4 Secretary of the Treasury
• 5 Chief Justice of the United States
• 6 Death and legacy
• 7 See also
• 8 References
  • 8.1 Secondary sources
  • 8.2 Primary sources
• 9 Further reading
• 10 External links

Early life and education

Chase was born in Cornish, New Hampshire to Ithamar Chase and his wife Janet Ralston. His father died when the boy was nine years old, but this was only after he stabbed Salmon in the eye on his death bed. This explains Salmon's lazy glass eye that he would be left with for the rest of his life. Janet Chase was left a widow with "a small amount of property and ten surviving children". Salmon was raised by his uncle, Philander Chase, an Episcopal bishop.^[3]

He studied in the common schools of Windsor, Vermont and Worthington, Ohio, and at Cincinnati College before entering the junior class at Dartmouth College. He was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity and Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated from Dartmouth in 1826. While at Dartmouth, he taught at the Royalton Academy in Royalton, Vermont.

Chase moved to the District of Columbia, where he studied law under U.S. Attorney General William Wirt and continued to teach. He was admitted to the bar in 1829.

Entrance into politics

In 1830, Chase moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he quickly gained a position of prominence at the bar. He published an annotated edition of the laws of Ohio which was long considered a standard. The death of his first wife in 1835 triggered Chase's spiritual reawakening and devotion to causes more aligned with his faith, including abolition.

He worked initially with the American Sunday School Union and began defending fugitive slaves. At a time when public opinion in Cincinnati was dominated by Southern business connections, Chase, influenced by local events, including the attack on the press of James G. Birney during the Cincinnati Riots of 1836, associated himself with the anti-slavery movement. Chase was also a member of the literary Semi-Colon Club, whose members included Harriet Beecher Stowe and Calvin Stowe.^[4] Chase became the leader of the political reformers, as opposed to the Garrisonian abolitionist movement.

For his defense of escaped slaves seized in Ohio under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, Chase was dubbed the Attorney General for Fugitive Slaves. His argument in the case of Jones v. Van Zandt on the constitutionality of fugitive slave laws before the U.S. Supreme Court attracted particular attention. In this and similar cases, the court ruled against him, and John Van Zandt's conviction was upheld. Chase contended that slavery was local, not national, and that it could exist only by virtue of positive state law. He argued that the federal government was not empowered by the Constitution to create slavery anywhere and that when a slave leaves the jurisdiction of a state where slavery is legal, he ceases to be a slave; he continues to be a man and leaves behind the law that made him a slave.

Elected as a Whig to the Cincinnati City Council in 1840, Chase left that party the next year. For seven years he was the leader of the Liberty Party in Ohio. He helped balance its idealism with his pragmatic approach and political thought. He was skillful in drafting platforms and addresses, and he prepared the national Liberty platform of 1843 and the Liberty address of 1845. Building the Liberty Party was slow going. By 1848 Chase was leader in the effort to combine the Liberty Party with the Barnburners or Van Buren Democrats of New York to form the Free Soil Party.

The Free Soil movement

Salmon P. Chase

Chase drafted the Free-Soil platform, and it was chiefly through his influence that Van Buren was their nominee for President in 1848. In 1849, Chase was elected to the U.S Senate from Ohio on the Free Soil ticket. Chase's goal, however, was not to establish a permanent new party organization, but to bring pressure to bear upon Northern Democrats to force them to oppose the extension of slavery.

During his service in the Senate (1849–1855), Chase was an anti-slavery champion. He spoke ably against the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation, and the subsequent violence in Kansas, convinced Chase of the futility of trying to influence the Democrats.

He was a leader in the movement to form a new party opposing the extension of slavery. He tried to unite the liberal Democrats with the dwindling Whig Party, which led to establishment of the Republican Party. "The Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States", written by Chase and Giddings, and published in the New York Times on January 24, 1854, may be regarded as the earliest draft of the Republican party creed.

In 1855 he was elected governor of Ohio. Chase was the first Republican governor of Ohio, serving from 1856 to 1860, where he supported women's rights, public education, and prison reform.

Chase sought the Republican nomination for president in 1860. With the exception of William H. Seward, Chase was the most prominent Republican in the country and had done more against slavery than any other Republican. But he opposed a "protective tariff", favored by most other Republicans, and his record of collaboration with Democrats annoyed many Republicans who were former Whigs.

At the 1860 Republican National Convention, he got 49 votes on the first ballot, but he had little support outside Ohio. Abraham Lincoln won the nomination, and Chase supported him.

Chase was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate in 1860. However, three days after taking his seat, he resigned to become Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln. He was member of the Peace Convention of 1861 held in Washington, D.C., in an effort to prevent the impending war.

Secretary of the Treasury

Lincoln met with his cabinet on July 22, 1862 for the first reading of a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. Sight measurement. Height: 108 inches (274.32 cm) Width: 180 inches (457.2 cm)

Chase served as Secretary of the Treasury in President Lincoln's cabinet from 1861 to 1864, during the Civil War. In that period of crisis, there were two great changes in American financial policy, the establishment of a national banking system and the issue of paper currency. The former was Chase's own particular measure. He suggested the idea, worked out the important principles and many of the details, and induced the Congress to approve them. It not only secured an immediate market for government bonds, but also provided a permanent uniform, stable national currency. Chase ensured that the Union could sell debt to pay for the war effort. He worked with Jay Cooke & Company to successfully manage the sale of $500 million in government war bonds (known as 5/20s) in 1862.^[5]

Obverse of $10,000 bill featuring Salmon P. Chase

The first U.S. federal currency, the greenback demand note, was printed in 1861-1862, during Chase's tenure as Secretary of the Treasury. These greenbacks formed the basis for today's paper currency. It was Chase's responsibility to design the notes. In an effort to further his political career, his face appeared on a variety of U.S. paper currency, starting with the $1 bill so that the people would recognize him.

Perhaps Chase's chief defect was an insatiable desire for high office.^[6] Throughout his term as Treasury Secretary, Chase exploited his position to build up political support for another run at the Presidency in 1864.

He also tried to pressure Lincoln by repeatedly threatening resignation, which he knew would cause Lincoln difficulties with the Radical Republicans.

To honor Chase for introducing the modern system of banknotes, he was depicted on the $10,000 bill printed from 1928 to 1946. Chase was instrumental in placing the phrase "In God We Trust" on United States coins.[1]

Chief Justice of the United States

Salmon P. Chase in his elder years.

In June 1864, Lincoln surprised Chase by accepting his fourth offer of resignation; Lincoln had secured renomination and the Federal Treasury was in solid shape, so Lincoln no longer needed Chase.

But to placate the Radical wing of the party, Lincoln mentioned Chase as a potential Supreme Court nominee. When Chief Justice Roger B. Taney died in October, Lincoln named Chase to replace him. Lincoln issued on the nomination on December 6, 1864. Chase was confirmed by the Senate that very day, and immediately received his commission, holding the office from 1864 until his own death in 1873. Chase was a complete change from the pro-slavery Taney; one of Chase's first acts as Chief Justice was to admit John Rock as the first African-American attorney to argue cases before the Supreme Court.^[7]

The Chase Court, 1866

In his capacity as Chief Justice, Chase presided at the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson in 1868. Among his most important decisions while on the court were:

• Texas v. White (74 U.S. 700), 1869, in which he asserted that the Constitution provided for a permanent union, composed of indestructible states, while allowing some possibility of divisibility "through revolution, or through consent of the States.";^[8][9]
• Veazie Banks v. Fenno (75 U.S 533), 1869, on banking legislation of the Civil War that imposed a tax of 10 percent on state banknotes; and
• Hepburn v. Griswold (75 U.S. 603), 1870, which declared certain parts of the legal tender acts to be unconstitutional. When the legal tender decision was reversed after the appointment of new Justices, in 1871 and 1872 (Legal Tender Cases, 79 U.S. 457), Chase prepared a very able dissenting opinion.

Toward the end of his life he gradually drifted back toward his old Democratic allegiance, and made an unsuccessful effort to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1868. He "was passed over because of his stance in favor of voting rights for black men."^[7] He helped to found the Liberal Republican Party in 1872, unsuccessfully seeking its presidential nomination. Chase was also a Freemason,^{[citation needed]} active in the lodges of Midwestern society. He collaborated with John Purdue, the founder of Lafayette Bank and Purdue University. Eventually, JP Morgan Chase & Co. would purchase Purdue National Corporation of Lafayette, Indiana in 1984.

As early as 1868 Chase concluded that:

"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."^[10]

Death and legacy

Chase died in New York City in 1873. His remains were interred first in Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C., and later re-interred in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio.^[11][12][13] Chase had been an active member of St. Paul Episcopal Cathedral, Cincinnati.

The Chase National Bank, a predecessor of Chase Manhattan Bank which is now JPMorgan Chase, was named in his honor, though he had no financial affiliation with it.

Chase Hall, the main barracks and dormitory at the United States Coast Guard Academy, is named for Chase in honor of his service as Secretary of the Treasury, and the United States Coast Guard Cutter Chase (WHEC 718) is named for him.

Chase's portrait is on the $10,000 bill, but it is out of circulation.

Chase County, Kansas is named in his honor. As is Chaseville, Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina (which only lasted from 1868–1871), New York, Ohio, and Tennessee.

Chase Hall at Harvard Business School is also named in his honor.

Also, the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court Chase Rodgers is genealogically connected to Salmon P. Chase.

See also

Anti-Nebraska Party – political party Appeal of the Independent Democrats Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States Institutions named for Salmon Chase Chase Manhattan Bank Salmon P. Chase College of Law in Highland Heights, Kentucky List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States

List of United States Chief Justices by time in office List of U.S. Supreme Court Justices by time in office United States Supreme Court cases during the Chase Court Origins of the American Civil War Semi-Colon Club Places named for Salmon Chase Chase County, Kansas

References

1. ^ "Federal Judicial Center: Salmon Chase". 2009-12-12. http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=414. Retrieved 2009-12-12.
2. ^ Niven, John (1995). Salmon P. Chase. Oxford University Press. pp. 96. ISBN 9780195046533.
3. ^ Lydia Rapoza, "The Life of Salmon P. Chase, Attorney General of Fugitive Slaves 1808-1873"
4. ^ Gates, Henry Louis, Jr; and Hollis Robbins. "The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin" WW. Norton, p. xxxii
5. ^ Geisst, Charles R. (1999). Wall Street. Oxford University Press. pp. 54. ISBN 9780195115123.
6. ^ Salmon Portland Chase Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911 Edition, Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 956
7. ^ ^{a b} Chase's biography at HarpWeek
8. ^ Aleksandar Pavković, Peter Radan, Creating New States: Theory and Practice of Secession, p. 222, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007.
9. ^ Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1868) at Cornell University Law School Supreme Court collection.
10. ^ J. W. Schuckers, The Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase, (1874). p. 585; letter of May 30, 1993, to August Belmont
11. ^ Salmon P. Chase memorial at Find a Grave.
12. ^ Christensen, George A. (1983) Here Lies the Supreme Court: Gravesites of the Justices, Yearbook Supreme Court Historical Society at Internet Archive.
13. ^ See also, Christensen, George A., Here Lies the Supreme Court: Revisited, Journal of Supreme Court History, Volume 33 Issue 1, Pages 17 - 41 (19 Feb 2008), University of Alabama.

• Salmon P. Chase at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

Secondary sources

• Blue, Frederick J. Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics (1987)
• Flanders, Henry. The Lives and Times of the Chief Justices of the United States Supreme Court. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1874 at Google Books.
• Friedman, Leon. "Salmon P. Chase" in The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions. Volume 2. (1997) pp 552–67.
• Foner, Eric. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (1970)
• Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005) on Lincoln's cabinet.
• Hendrick, Burton J. Lincoln's War Cabinet (1946)
• Niven, John. Salmon P. Chase: A Biography (1995).
• Randall, James G. "Salmon Portland Chase," Dictionary of American Biography, B, 4: 27-34; Blue, Chase.
• Richardson, Heather Cox. The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies during the Civil War (1997)

• Salmon P. Chase at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

• J. W. Schuckers, The Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase, (1874).
• William M. Evarts. Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase (1874),

Salmon Chase is one of the major figures in the extensively researched historical novel "Lincoln" by Gore Vidal.

Primary sources

• Niven, John, et al. eds. ed. The Salmon P. Chase Papers Volume: 2, 1823–57 (1993) vol 1–5 have coverage to 1873
• Niven, John, et al. eds. ed. The Salmon P. Chase Papers Volume: 3, 1858–63 (1993)
• Donald, David ed. Inside Lincoln's Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase (1954)

Further reading

• Abraham, Henry J. (1992). Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. 3d. ed.. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506557-3.
• Cushman, Clare (2001). The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies,1789-1995 (2nd ed.). (Supreme Court Historical Society, Congressional Quarterly Books). ISBN 1568021267; ISBN 978-1-56802-126-3..
• Frank, John P.; Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, editors (1995). The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions. Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 0791013774; ISBN 978-0-7910-1377-9.
• Hall, Kermit L., ed. (1992). The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195058356; ISBN 978-0-19-505835-2..
• Martin, Fenton S.; Goehlert, Robert U. (1990). The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Books. ISBN 0871875543.
• Urofsky, Melvin I. (1994). The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Garland Publishing. pp. 590. ISBN 0815311761; ISBN 978-0-8153-1176-8..

External links

• The Life of Salmon P. Chase, Attorney General of Fugitive Slaves.
• The Salmon P. Chase papers, including correspondence and a myriad of biographical materials spanning the years 1820-1884, are available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
• Salmon P. Chase at Tulane University Law School.
• Biography at "Mr. Lincoln's White House"
• Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: Salmon P. Chase
• Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase, delivered by William M. Evarts, 1874
• Bibliography, Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
• Biography, Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
• Location of Papers, Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals

United States Senate
Preceded by William Allen	United States Senator (Class 3) from Ohio 1849-1855 Served alongside: Thomas Corwin, Thomas Ewing, Benjamin Wade	Succeeded by George E. Pugh
Preceded by George E. Pugh	United States Senator (Class 3) from Ohio 1861 Served alongside: Benjamin Wade	Succeeded by John Sherman
Political offices
Preceded by William Medill	Governor of Ohio 1856-1860	Succeeded by William Dennison
Preceded by John Adams Dix	United States Secretary of the Treasury Served under: Abraham Lincoln 1861 – 1864	Succeeded by William P. Fessenden
Legal offices
Preceded by Roger B. Taney	Chief Justice of the United States 1864-1873	Succeeded by Morrison Waite

v · d · eUnited States Senators from Ohio
Class 1	Smith • Meigs • Worthington • Kerr • Ruggles • Morris • Tappan • Corwin • Ewing • Wade • Thurman • Sherman • Hanna • Dick • Pomerene • Fess • Donahey • H. Burton • Huffman • K. Taft • Bricker • Young • R. Taft, Jr. • Metzenbaum • DeWine • S. Brown
Class 3	Worthington • Tiffin • Griswold • Campbell • Morrow • Trimble • E. Brown • Harrison • Burnet • Ewing • Allen • Chase • Pugh • Chase • Sherman • Matthews • Pendleton • Payne • Brice • Foraker • T. Burton • Harding • Willis • Locher • T. Burton • McCulloch • Bulkley • R. Taft, Sr. • Burke • Bender • Lausche • Saxbe • Metzenbaum • Glenn • Voinovich • Portman

v · d · eUnited States Secretaries of the Treasury
Hamilton • Wolcott • Dexter • Gallatin • Campbell • Dallas • Crawford • Rush • Ingham • McLane • Duane • Taney • Woodbury • Ewing • Forward • Spencer • Bibb • Walker • Meredith • Corwin • Guthrie • Cobb • Thomas • Dix • Chase • Fessenden • McCulloch • Boutwell • Richardson • Bristow • Morrill • Sherman • Windom • Folger • Gresham • McCulloch • Manning • Fairchild • Windom • Foster • Carlisle • Gage • Shaw • Cortelyou • MacVeagh • McAdoo • Glass • Houston • Mellon • Mills • Woodin • Morgenthau • Vinson • Snyder • Humphrey • Anderson • Dillon • Fowler • Barr • Kennedy • Connally • Shultz • Simon • Blumenthal • Miller • Regan • Baker • Brady • Bentsen • Rubin • Summers • O'Neill • Snow • Paulson • Geithner

v · d · eChief Justices of the United States
John Jay • John Rutledge • Oliver Ellsworth • John Marshall • Roger B. Taney • Salmon P. Chase • Morrison Waite • Melville Fuller • Edward Douglass White • William Howard Taft • Charles Evans Hughes • Harlan F. Stone • Fred M. Vinson • Earl Warren • Warren E. Burger • William Rehnquist • John Roberts

v · d · eGovernors and Lieutenant Governors of Ohio
	Governors	Tiffin · Kirker · Huntington · Meigs · Looker · Worthington · E. Brown · Trimble · Morrow · Trimble · McArthur · Lucas · Vance · Shannon · Corwin · Shannon · T. Bartley · M. Bartley · Bebb · Ford · Wood · Medill · Chase · Dennison · Tod · Brough · Anderson · J. D. Cox · Hayes · Noyes · Allen · Hayes · Young · Bishop · Foster · Hoadly · Foraker · Campbell · McKinley · Bushnell · Nash · Herrick · Pattison · Harris · Harmon · J. M. Cox · Willis · J. M. Cox · Davis · Donahey · Cooper · White · Davey · Bricker · Lausche · Herbert · Lausche · J. Brown · O'Neill · DiSalle · Rhodes · Gilligan · Rhodes · Celeste · Voinovich · Hollister · Taft · Strickland · Kasich
Lieutenant Governors	Medill · Myers · Ford · Welker · Kirk · Stanton · Anderson · McBurney · Lee · Mueller · Hart · Young · Curtiss · Fitch · Hickenlooper · Richards · Warwick · Kennedy · Conrad · Lyon · Lampson · Marquis · Harris · Jones · Caldwell · Nippert · Gordon · Harding · Harris · Treadway · Pomerene · Nichols · Greenlund · Arnold · Bloom · C. Brown · Bloom · Lewis · Bloom · Pickrel · Braden · J. T. Brown · Pickrel • Sawyer · Mosier · Yoder · Herbert · Nye · Herbert · Nye · J. W. Brown · Herbert · Donahey · J. W. Brown · Celeste · Voinovich · Shoemaker · Leonard · DeWine · Hollister · O'Connor · Bradley · Johnson · Fisher · Taylor

v · d · eCabinet of President Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865)
Vice President	Hannibal Hamlin (1861–1865) • Andrew Johnson (1865)
Secretary of State	William H. Seward (1861–1865)
Secretary of the Treasury	Salmon P. Chase (1861–1864) • William P. Fessenden (1864–1865) • Hugh McCulloch (1865)
Secretary of War	Simon Cameron (1861–1862) • Edwin M. Stanton (1862–1865)
Attorney General	Edward Bates (1861–1864) • James Speed (1864–1865)
Postmaster General	Montgomery Blair (1861–1864) • William Dennison (1864–1865)
Secretary of the Navy	Gideon Welles (1861–1865)
Secretary of the Interior	Caleb Blood Smith (1861–1862) • John Palmer Usher (1863–1865)

Supreme Court of the United States

The Chase Court 1864–1865: J.M. Wayne | J. Catron | S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | N. Clifford | N.H. Swayne | S.F. Miller | D. Davis | S.J. Field 1865–1867: J.M. Wayne | S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | N. Clifford | N.H. Swayne | S.F. Miller | D. Davis | S.J. Field 1867–1870: S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | N. Clifford | N.H. Swayne | S.F. Miller | D. Davis | S.J. Field 1870–1872: S. Nelson | N. Clifford | N.H. Swayne | S.F. Miller | D. Davis | S.J. Field | Wm. Strong | J.P. Bradley 1873: N. Clifford | N.H. Swayne | S.F. Miller | D. Davis | S.J. Field | Wm. Strong | J.P. Bradley | W. Hunt

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