Salmon P. Chase

Salmon P. Chase
Governor of Ohio
In office January 14, 1856 – January 9, 1860
Lieutenant	Thomas Ford Martin Welker
Preceded by	William Medill
Succeeded by	William Dennison
Personal details
Born	Salmon Portland Chase (1808-01-13)January 13, 1808 Cornish, New Hampshire, U.S.
Died	May 7, 1873(1873-05-07) (aged 65) New York City, U.S.
Resting place	Spring Grove Cemetery
Political party	Whig (before 1841) Liberty (1841–1848) Free Soil (1848–1854) Republican (1854–1868) Democratic (1868–1873)
Spouses	Katherine Garmiss ​ ​ (m. 1834; died 1835)​ Eliza Ann Smith ​ ​ (m. 1839, died)​ Sarah Dunlop Ludlow ​ (died)​
Children	2, Kate and Janet ("Nettie")
Relatives	Chase family
Education	Dartmouth College (BA)
Signature

Salmon Portland Chase (January 13, 1808 – May 7, 1873) was an American politician and jurist who served as the sixth

Chase served as Chief Justice from 1864 to his death in 1873. He presided over the Senate trial of President Andrew Johnson during the impeachment proceedings of 1868. Despite his nomination to the court, Chase continued to pursue the presidency. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1868 and the Liberal Republican nomination in 1872.

Early years

Chase was born in

He studied in the common schools of

The Salmon P. Chase Birthplace and childhood home still stands in Cornish, New Hampshire.^{[citation needed]}

Legal and political career

Chase moved to a country home near Loveland, Ohio,^[8] and practiced law in Cincinnati from 1830.^[9] He rose to prominence for his authoritative compilation of the state's statutes,^[2] which long remained the standard work on the topic.

From the beginning, despite the risk to his livelihood,

For his defense of people arrested in Ohio under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, Chase was dubbed the "Attorney General for Fugitive Slaves."^[12] 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. 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 an enslaved person 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. In this and similar cases, the court ruled against him, and the judgment against John Van Zandt was upheld.^{[citation needed]}

Though elected as a Whig to a one-year term on the Cincinnati City Council in 1840,^[13][14] Chase left that party the next year.^[14] In the 1840s, he helped to form the Liberty Party.^[15] For seven years, Chase was the leader of the Liberty Party in Ohio. He helped balance its idealism with his pragmatic approach and political thought. Chase 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 the 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.^{[citation needed]}

Chase drafted the Free-Soil platform,^[16] and it was chiefly through his influence that Van Buren was their nominee for president in 1848.^{[citation needed]} In 1849, Chase was elected to the U.S. Senate from Ohio on the Free Soil ticket.^[15] 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.^{[citation needed]} During his associations with the Liberty and Free Soil parties, Chase considered himself an "Independent Democrat" or a "Free Democrat".^[15]

While serving in the Senate (1849–1855), Chase was an anti-slavery champion. He argued against the Compromise of 1850^[17] and the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854.^[18] After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation and the subsequent violence in Kansas, Chase helped form the Republican Party with former Whigs and anti-slavery members of the American Party.^[19] 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, Chase was elected the first Republican governor of Ohio. During his time in office, from 1856 to 1860, he supported improved property rights for women, changes to public education, and prison reform.^[5]

In 1860, Chase sought the Republican nomination for president, with Massachusetts Governor

Chase was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate from Ohio in 1860. However, he resigned shortly after taking his seat in order to become Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln.^[5] He was also a participant in the February 1861 Peace Conference in Washington, D.C., a meeting of leading American politicians held in an effort to resolve the burgeoning secession crisis and to preserve the Union on the eve of the Civil War.^{[citation needed]}

Secretary of the Treasury

During the Civil War, Chase served as Secretary of the Treasury in President Lincoln's cabinet from 1861 to 1864. 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

The first U.S. federal currency, the greenback

On October 10, 1862, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles wrote that "a scheme for permits, special favors, Treasury agents, and improper management" existed and was arranged by Treasury Secretary Chase for General John A. Dix. The motive of Chase appeared to be for political influence and not for financial gain.^[29]

Perhaps Chase's chief defect was an insatiable desire for high office.^[30] Throughout his term as Treasury Secretary, Chase exploited his position to build up political support for another run at the presidency in 1864. Benjamin Wade, a Republican commented: "Chase is a good man but his theology is unsound. He thinks there is a fourth person in the Trinity."^[31]

He also tried to pressure Lincoln by repeatedly threatening resignation,^[32] 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 in 1864.^[33]

Chief Justice

In June 1864, Lincoln surprised Chase by accepting his fourth offer of resignation as Treasury Secretary. The Republican Party had at that point already nominated Lincoln as its presidential candidate and the Treasury was in solid shape, so Lincoln no longer needed to keep Chase in the cabinet to forestall a challenge for the presidential nomination.^[34] But to placate the party's Radical wing, Lincoln mentioned Chase as a potential Supreme Court nominee.

When Chief Justice Roger B. Taney died in October 1864, Lincoln named Chase to succeed him. Nominated on December 6, 1864, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on the same day,^[35] he was sworn into office on December 15, 1864, and served until his death on May 7, 1873.^[1] One of Chase's first acts as Chief Justice was to admit John Rock to the Supreme Court Bar, making him the first African-American attorney eligible to argue cases before the Supreme Court.^[36][37]

Among his more significant 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";^[38][39]
• Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 75 U.S. 533 (1869), upholding banking legislation of the Civil War that imposed a 10% tax 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.

As Chief Justice, Chase also presided at

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.^[44]

A few months before his death, Chase found himself in the minority of a 5–4 ruling in the

On October 23, 1873, in formally announcing the death of Chief Justice Chase in the Supreme Court and conveying the resolutions submitted by the bar, Attorney General George Henry Williams highlighted Chase's "early, continued and effectual labours for the universal freedom of man."^[47]

• 
  The Chase Court, c. 1867
• 
  Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Samuel Nelson (left) administers oath to Chief Justice Chase for the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson

Death

Chase died of a stroke in New York City on May 7, 1873.

After Chase's death in 1873, the Supreme Court established a tradition that a newly deceased Justice's chair and the front of the bench where the Justice sat will be draped with black wool crêpe, with black crêpe hung over the Court's entrance.^[51]

The

In 1845, Chase was presented with a silver pitcher by black leaders in the city of Cincinnati. Engraved on the pitcher were the words “A testimonial of gratitude to Salmon P. Chase from the Colored People of Cincinnati for his various public services in behalf of the oppressed.[52]

In May 1865, Chase was elected a 3rd class companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS). MOLLUS was an organization of Union officers who had served in the Civil War which allowed distinguished civilians who had supported the Union cause to join as 3rd class companions. Chase was one of the first to receive this honor and was assigned MOLLUS insignia number 46.^{[citation needed]}

Chase's portrait appears on the United States $10,000 bill, the largest denomination of U.S. currency to publicly circulate. The bill was last printed in 1945. In 1969, the Federal Reserve began withdrawing high-denomination bills from circulation, and as of 2009, only 336 $10,000 bills had not been returned for destruction.^[53]

Although not referred to by name, Chase was portrayed by Montagu Love in the 1942 film Tennessee Johnson and appears during Andrew Johnson's impeachment scenes. Chase was also portrayed by Josh Stamberg in the 2013 movie Saving Lincoln.^[55]

See also

References

Citations

Primary sources

• Niven, John, et al. eds. ed. The Salmon P. Chase Papers Volume: 2, 1823–57 (1993) Archived August 10, 2011, at the Wayback Machine vol 1–5 have coverage to 1873
• Niven, John, et al. eds. ed. The Salmon P. Chase Papers Volume: 3, 1858–63 (1993) Archived August 24, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
• Donald, David ed. Inside Lincoln's Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase (1954) Archived August 10, 2011, at the Wayback Machine

Secondary sources

• Salmon Portland Chase at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• Baynes, T. S., ed. (1878), "Salmon Portland Chase" , Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 435
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), "Salmon Portland Chase" , Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5 (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 955–956
• Blue, Frederick J. Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics (1987) Archived August 10, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
• Flanders, Henry. The Lives and Times of the Chief Justices of the United States Supreme Court Archived June 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. 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) Archived August 22, 2011, at the Wayback Machine pp 552–67.
• Foner, Eric. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (1970) Archived July 28, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
  (2005) on Lincoln's cabinet.
• Hendrick, Burton J. Lincoln's War Cabinet (1946) Archived May 29, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
• Niven, John. Salmon P. Chase: A Biography (1995).
• Randall, James G. (1928–1990). "Chase, Salmon Portland". Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 4. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 27–34.
• Richardson, Heather Cox. The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies during the Civil War (1997) Archived May 25, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
• J. W. Schuckers, The Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase, (1874).
• William M. Evarts (1874). Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase. Archived from the original on February 2, 2020. Retrieved August 28, 2020.
• ISBN 9780394528953
  . Salmon Chase is one of the major figures in this extensively researched historical novel.

Further reading

• Abraham, Henry J. (1992). Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court (3rd ed.). New York:
  ISBN 0-19-506557-3
  .
• Barnett, Randy E. (2013). "From Antislavery Lawyer to Chief Justice: The Remarkable but Forgotten Career of Salmon P. Chase", Case Western Reserve Law Review, vol. 63, issue 3, pp. 653–702. online
• Benedict, Michael Les. "Salmon P. Chase and Constitutional Politics". Law & Social Inquiry 22.2 (1997): 459–500.
• Blue, Frederick J. "From Right to Left: The Political Conversion of Salmon P. Chase." Northern Kentucky Law Review, 21 (1993): 1+.
• Blue, Frederick J. "The moral journey of a political abolitionist: Salmon P. Chase and his critics." Civil War History 57.3 (2011): 210–233.
• Bouie, Jamelle (October 15, 2022). "What an Antislavery Politician Missed and Why It Still Matters". The New York Times.
• Caires, Michael T. "Building a Union of Banks: Salmon P. Chase and the Creation of the National Banking System" New Perspectives on the Union War edited by Gary W. Gallagher and Elizabeth R. Varon (Fordham UP, 2019) pp 160-185. online

• Cushman, Clare (2001). The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789–1995 (2nd ed.). Supreme Court Historical Society, Congressional Quarterly Books.
  ISBN 978-1-56802-126-3
  .
• Frank, John P. (1995). Leon Friedman; Fred L. Israel (eds.). The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions. Chelsea House Publishers.
  ISBN 978-0-7910-1377-9
  .
• Gerteis, Louis S. "Salmon P. Chase, Radicalism, and the Politics of Emancipation, 1861-1864." Journal of American History 60.1 (1973): 42–62. online
• Hall, Kermit L., ed. (1992). The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York:
  ISBN 978-0-19-505835-2
  .

• Hughes, David F. (March 1965). "Salmon P. Chase: Chief Justice". Vanderbilt Law Review. 18 (2): 569–614.
• Maizlish, Stephen E. (1998). "Salmon P. Chase: The Roots of Ambition and the Origins of Reform". Journal of the Early Republic 18.1, pp. 47–70.
  JSTOR 3124732
  .
• Martin, Fenton S.; Goehlert, Robert U. (1990). The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Books.
  ISBN 0-87187-554-3
  .
• Newman, Patrick. "The Origins of the National Banking System: The Chase–Cooke Connection and the New York City Banks"." Independent Review 22.3 (2018): 383–401.
  JSTOR 26314773
  .
• Niven, John. "Lincoln and Chase, a Reappraisal". Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Vol. 12, 1991, pp. 1-15, with a comment by Don E. Fehrenbacher.
• Roseboom, Eugene H. "Salmon P. Chase and the Know Nothings". Mississippi Valley Historical Review 25.3 (1938): 335–350.
  JSTOR 1897252
  .
• Stahr, Walter (2021). Salmon P. Chase: Lincoln's Vital Rival. Simon & Schuster.
• Urofsky, Melvin I. (1994). The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Garland Publishing. p. 590.
  ISBN 978-0-8153-1176-8
  .
• Warden, Robert B. (1874). An account of the private life and public services of Salmon Portland Chase. Cincinnati: Wilstach, Baldwin and Co. Authorized biography.
• White, G. Edward. "Reconstructing the Constitutional Jurisprudence of Salmon P. Chase." Northern Kentucky Law Review, 21 (1993): 41+.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Salmon P. Chase.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Salmon P. Chase.

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Salmon P. Chase

• The Life of Salmon P. Chase, Attorney General of Fugitive Slaves., at WebCitation.org
• 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"
• Biography Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine at "Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: Salmon P. Chase"
• Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase, delivered by William M. Evarts, 1874, at Project Gutenberg
• Biography, Bibliography, and Location of Papers, via
  U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Interview with John Niven on Salmon P. Chase: A Biography, May 28, 1995. at Booknotes
• Salmon P. Chase Letters at Dartmouth College Library
• "Salmon P. Chase."—Heather Cox Richardson interview on The Professor Buzzkill History Podcast, July 16, 2022.

• United States Congress. "Salmon P. Chase (id: C000332)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.