Salmon P. Chase

American politician and jurist

• Born: January 13, 1808
• Birthplace: Cornish, New Hampshire
• Died: May 7, 1873
• Place of death: New York, New York

As an attorney, politician, and constitutional theorist, Chase contributed to the abolition of slavery. During the 1850’s, he served as a U.S. senator and as governor of Ohio, and he participated in the formation of the Republican Party. He was later appointed secretary of the treasury and became chief justice of the United States.

Early Life

Salmon P. Chase’s father, Ithamar Chase, whose family had come to North America during the 1640’s, was a farmer who held minor local offices and occasionally served in the state legislature. Chase’s mother, Janette Ralston, was the daughter of Scottish immigrants who became prominent landowners in Keene, New Hampshire. Ithamar died when the younger Chase was eight, so the boy spent his youth living with various friends and relatives, including his uncle, Philander Chase, the bishop of the Episcopal Church in Ohio.

In 1821, Chase entered Cincinnati College, where his uncle Philander was president. Philander’s influence on his nephew was profound. For the rest of his life, Chase would be extremely pious. His later commitment to the abolition of slavery would be as much religious as political. By 1823, Chase had returned to New Hampshire, where he briefly taught school before entering Dartmouth College. In 1826 he was graduated eighth in his class, a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Chase then moved to Washington, D.C., where he taught school before beginning law studies under William Wirt in 1827. In December, 1829, he was admitted to the bar.

In 1830, the athletic, tall, vigorous, and ambitious Chase settled in Cincinnati, where he practiced law and took an active role in civic affairs. Between 1831 and 1833, he published historical essays in The North American Review, anonymous editorials in Ohio newspapers, and a three-volume, comprehensive compilation of Ohio’s laws, The Statutes of Ohio (1833-1835). Chase was neither brilliant nor eloquent in court, but he was hardworking, careful, and scholarly. These traits brought him a comfortable and growing commercial practice that, by 1835, included such clients as the Bank of the United States and the Lafayette Bank of Ohio. By 1845, his firm of Chase and Ball earned an estimated ten thousand dollars a year—an extraordinarily large sum for the era. In 1834, Chase married his first wife, who died in 1835. Two other marriages (in 1839 and 1846) would also end with the death of his wives. Of his six daughters only two, Katherine Chase Sprauge and Jeanette Chase Hoyt, survived to adulthood.

Life’s Work

Chase’s national career had four phases: abolitionist lawyer, United States senator and governor of Ohio, secretary of the treasury, and chief justice of the United States.

From 1830 to 1849, Chase lived in Cincinnati, where his law firm flourished. In addition to this profitable practice, Chase offered free legal services to abolitionists, fugitive slaves, and free blacks. In 1836, mobs destroyed the office of Cincinnati’s antislavery newspaper, the Philanthropist , and threatened the life of its editor, James Gillespie Birney . Also threatened was Chase’s brother-in-law, Dr. Isaac Colby. Through this incident, Chase became an attorney for the antislavery cause. Chase was initially attracted to the abolitionist movement because he abhorred the mob violence and disrespect for law directed against it. He evolved into a passionate and articulate supporter of the cause. In 1836, he won a damage suit against members of the mob, recovering some money for Birney to rebuild the office of the Philanthropist. A year later, Chase unsuccessfully defended the freedom of a fugitive slave, Matilda, who had been harbored by Birney. Birney was then convicted for helping Matilda, but Chase won a reversal on appeal.

By 1841, Chase was a leading antislavery attorney in Ohio. Chase rejected the anticonstitutionalism of William Lloyd Garrison and instead developed a constitutional theory consistent with opposition to slavery. In 1843 and 1848, he was the chief author of the platform of the national Free-Soil Party. Besides his Free-Soil political activities, Chase defended numerous fugitive slaves and their white and black allies. During the 1840’s, Chase corresponded with antislavery lawyers throughout the Midwest, persuading them to take cases that he had no time to handle and advising them on legal strategies. Chase lost his most famous fugitive slave case, Jones v. Van Zandt (1847), but his printed Supreme Court brief, titled “Reclamation of Fugitives from Service,” added to his growing national reputation as the “attorney general for fugitive slaves.”

In 1849, a small group of Free-Soilers held the balance of power in the Ohio legislature. Guided in part by Chase, these political abolitionists secured two victories: They negotiated the repeal of most of Ohio’s racially restrictive “black code,” and they secured the election of Chase to the U.S. Senate.

In the Senate, Chase failed in his attempt to create a “Free Democracy” made up of antislavery Democrats such as himself. Effectively separated from all parties, he remained one of the most uncompromising Senate opponents of slavery, constantly challenging southerners and their northern allies. As a politician, Chase was somewhat ponderous, pompous, and self-righteous. While he was not a great debater, his carefully written speeches read well on the stump and in the Senate.

In 1850, Chase was one of the leading opponents of the Fugitive Slave Law and other proslavery aspects of the Compromise of that year. While in the Senate, Chase continued to develop his antislavery constitutional analysis, arguing that the Fifth Amendment made slavery unconstitutional wherever the federal government had jurisdiction. This led to his concept of “freedom national, slavery sectional,” which became a rallying cry for the Republican Party, especially after the Dred Scott decision (1857). Chase also laid out the theoretical basis for the Republican Party’s slogan of 1856: Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Speech, Free Men.

In 1854, Chase emerged as a leader of the opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act and in the process once again tried to organize a party of “Independent Democrats.” No “Independent Democracy” emerged in 1854, but by 1855 a broader coalition of Free-Soilers, northern Democrats, and Whigs had united into an “Anti-Nebraska Party,” which soon became the Republican Party. Chase was instrumental in the founding of this new political organization in Ohio. In 1855, he became one of the first Republican governors in the nation by defeating candidates from both the Whig and Democratic parties. In 1857, he was reelected governor of Ohio.

As Ohio’s governor, Chase helped create the Republican Party in both the state and the nation. In part because of his cold personality, however, he was unable to unify the state party behind his own presidential ambitions; in both 1856 and 1860, he was unsuccessful in his efforts to gain the Republican nomination for that office.

While governor, Chase opposed the extradition of fugitive slaves but was unable to prevent the removal of the slave Margaret Garner, who killed her own daughter to prevent the child’s return to slavery. After the rescue of an alleged fugitive slave near Oberlin, however, Chase gave support to the rescuers and appeared willing to confront federal authorities. In another case, Chase prevented the extradition of a free black accused of helping slaves to escape from Kentucky. This ultimately led to the Supreme Court decision in Kentucky v. Dennison (1861), in which Chief Justice Roger B. Taney chastised Ohio for its antislavery activities but refused actually to order the return of the accused fugitive.

Throughout his governorship, Chase tried to walk a fine line between actual defiance of federal law and the Constitution, and his thoroughgoing opposition to slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law. When not sparring with the federal government, Governor Chase directed his energies to reorganizing the Ohio militia, which would ultimately be a major asset to the Union during the Civil War.

In 1860, Governor Chase failed to obtain the Republican presidential nomination. He was, however, elected to the U.S. Senate in the fall of that year. During the secession crisis, he served as a “peace commissioner” from Ohio, where he opposed any extension of slavery into the territories but also disclaimed any intention of interfering with slavery where it already existed. In March, he had barely taken his seat in the Senate when President Abraham Lincoln appointed him secretary of the treasury.

In his new office, Chase faced the formidable task of financing the Civil War. With the aid of financier Jay Cooke, Chase was able to market government bonds, thus providing a constant flow of capital into the national treasury. Chase’s initiatives led to the establishment of a national banking system in 1863 with a system of currency backed by federal bonds and securities. Because the Treasury Department was also responsible for confiscated and abandoned property from the Confederacy, Chase was able to take an active role in the dismantling of slavery.

Chase, the most radical abolitionist in Lincoln’s original cabinet, used his office to chip away at slavery in the period before the Emancipation Proclamation (1862). He supported generals who used their power to undermine or destroy the institution, as long as they did not overtly go beyond administration policy. Under Chase’s protégé, Edward L. Pierce, the first steps toward educating former slaves for life as free men and women took place in 1862 on the sea islands of South Carolina. Chase encouraged dedicated abolitionists to run this “rehearsal for reconstruction.” In the cabinet, Chase argued for an early end to slavery itself. Chase strongly supported the Emancipation Proclamation, even though he believed that it did not go far enough. Chase’s personal piety led him to persuade Lincoln to ask for the “gracious favor of Almighty God” at the end of the proclamation.

Throughout his tenure as secretary of the treasury, Chase’s relationship with Lincoln was strained. He had serious policy disagreements with Lincoln, especially on such issues as emancipation and black rights. Chase was far ahead of his president on these matters. In addition, Chase wanted Lincoln’s job: Chase had his eye on the White House in 1856 and 1860. He thought that after a single term Lincoln would step aside, and he could step forward. Chase’s feuding with Secretary of State William H. Seward and his persistent campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in 1864 made it increasingly difficult for him to remain in the cabinet. In June, 1864, a conflict over the appointment of a subordinate led Chase to offer his resignation. This was the fourth or fifth time he had done so. Much to his surprise, Lincoln accepted the resignation and Chase was out of the cabinet.

In spite of his disagreements with Lincoln, Chase ultimately campaigned actively for the Republican ticket throughout the fall of 1864. After his reelection, Lincoln appointed Chase to replace the late Roger B. Taney as chief justice of the United States. Chase was a logical choice. He had been an eminent attorney and had developed the most coherent antislavery legal-constitutional arguments of the antebellum period. He was sympathetic to emancipation and the other war policies of the Lincoln administration.

Rather than marking a fitting end to his lifetime of public service, however, Chase’s years in the Supreme Court were an anticlimax if not an embarrassment. Chase joined a Court that was deeply divided between antislavery Lincoln appointees and proslavery holdovers from the prewar years. During Reconstruction, the court was asked to decide on questions that were at the heart of the political crisis of the period. The Court’s answer, and Chase’s leadership, were mixed.

Chase presided over the impeachment of Andrew Johnson with fairness and skill. He earned the respect of most of the Senate, and of much of the nation. This might have been the capstone of his career. Chase still had his eye on the presidency, however, and he used his newfound prestige to campaign for the office. Chase’s hunger for the White House led him to repudiate his previous support for black suffrage, in hopes of getting the Democratic nomination. He failed in this effort and in the process lost support from moderates as well as former abolitionists.

When he appointed Chase, Lincoln told a friend “we wish for a Chief Justice who will sustain what has been done in regard to emancipation and the legal tenders.” Had Lincoln lived, he would have been disappointed by Chase on the latter issue. In Hepburn v. Griswold (1870) and in the Legal Tender cases (1871), Chase voted to void the financial system that he had set up as the secretary of the treasury. The chief justice was severely criticized for this.

On black rights, Chase’s record was more consistent. Despite his willingness to oppose black suffrage in order to gain the presidential nomination in 1868, Chase was a genuine supporter of black rights. In the Slaughterhouse cases (1873), Chase vigorously dissented, arguing that the majority opinion undermined the rights of the freedmen. In other Reconstruction decisions, Chase generally supported Congress over the president or the states. The one major exception was the loyalty oaths, which Chase opposed from the bench. In his most important Reconstruction decision, Texas v. White (1868), Chase upheld the basic theory of congressional Reconstruction in an opinion that was sensitive to the political realities of the era. Chase also upheld the power of Congress to limit Supreme Court jurisdiction in the postwar South in Ex parte McCardle (1868). In Ex parte Milligan (1866), however, he denied the right of the executive branch to abolish civilian courts in those states that remained within the Union.

Significance

Few men in American history have held so many important governmental positions. Chase’s contributions to the antislavery movement and the Republican Party were critical. His defense of fugitive slaves and abolitionists was unmatched by other lawyers of his age; his development of a coherent antislavery constitutional theory helped pave the way for Lincoln’s victory in 1860 and the ultimate abolition of slavery. As secretary of the treasury, Chase was a valuable and hardworking member of Lincoln’s cabinet. Besides organizing the financing of the war effort, Chase helped develop Reconstruction policy. During the early years of the war, he also helped Lincoln manage the War Department, which was being incompetently and corruptly run by Secretary of War Simon Cameron.

As chief justice, Chase was a disappointment. He was unable to assert the authority and leadership that he had displayed in his other public positions. His opinions were never as sharp as his prewar speeches had been. Moreover, his positions, so clear and consistent in the antebellum period, were sometimes vague on the bench. His grasping for the presidency reflected poorly on him and on the office he held. Nevertheless, Chase guided the Supreme Court through the impeachment crisis with dignity. He also avoided running afoul of Congress at a time when that branch might have seriously damaged the Supreme Court, had Chase and his brethren opposed congressional Reconstruction policies. Similarly, Chase left the bench on a high note, vigorously asserting the rights of the freedmen in the Slaughterhouse cases, at a time when a majority of the Supreme Court and the nation were rejecting any commitment to racial equality.

Bibliography

Chase, Salmon Portland. Inside Lincoln’s Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase. Edited by David H. Donald. New York: Longmans, Green, 1954. Chase kept a detailed diary while in the cabinet. This carefully edited edition offers great insight into Chase and his role in the cabinet. Part of the diary is also available, along with many Chase letters, in volume 2 of the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office in 1903.

Foner, Eric. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970. Contains an important chapter on Chase’s constitutional theory and its relationship to Republican ideology. Throughout this book, Chase is a major figure.

Hart, Albert Bushnell. Salmon Portland Chase. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1899. Although dated, this volume remains the best available biography of Chase. The book is relatively weak on his judicial career but is an excellent introduction to his abolitionist efforts and political career.

Hyman, Harold M. The Reconstruction Justice of Salmon P. Chase: In Re Turner and Texas v. White. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. Hyman analyzes the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in two Reconstruction era cases regarding the legal rights of slaves and the status of former Confederate states. After a brief sketch of Chase’s life, he describes how Chase’s decisions in these two cases reflected his abolitionist beliefs and activist judicial philosophy.

Hyman, Harold M., and William M. Wiecek. Equal Justice Under Law: Constitutional Development, 1835-1875. New York: Harper & Row, 1982. Covers the developments in constitutional and legal thought during Chase’s career.

Kutler, Stanley I. Judicial Power and Reconstruction Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Best short introduction to the problems of the Supreme Court under Chase.

Niven, John. Salmon P. Chase: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Niven portrays Chase as a complex mixture of idealism and ambition, whose pursuit of abolition was equaled by an ardent pursuit of power.

Niven, John, James P. McClure, and Leigh Johnsen, eds. The Salmon P. Chase Papers. 5 vols. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1993-1998. One of the five volumes consists of entries from Chase’s journal between 1829 and 1872; the remaining four volumes contain his correspondence from 1823 to 1873. These documents provide insight into Chase’s role in the antislavery movement, his political career, and the legal issues he confronted as chief justice.

Schuckers, Jacob W. The Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970. Written by one of Chase’s protégés (and originally published in 1874), this book presents an overly heroic portrait of its subject but is nevertheless useful, particularly for the many Chase letters and speeches that it reprints.

Warden, Robert. An Account of the Private Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase. Cincinnati: Wilstach, Baldwin, 1874. Much like the Schuckers biography, this volume is useful but uncritical.

Wiecek, William M. The Sources of Antislavery Constitutionalism in America, 1760-1848. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977. Places Chase’s antislavery theories and legal arguments in the context of other abolitionist constitutional theorists.