Salmon P. Chase | |
|---|---|
 Portrait byMathew Bradyc. 1870 | |
| 6th Chief Justice of the United States | |
| In office December 15, 1864 – May 7, 1873[1] | |
| Nominated by | Abraham Lincoln |
| Preceded by | Roger B. Taney |
| Succeeded by | Morrison Waite |
| 25th United States Secretary of the Treasury | |
| In office March 7, 1861 – June 30, 1864 | |
| President | Abraham Lincoln |
| Preceded by | John Adams Dix |
| Succeeded by | William P. Fessenden |
| United States Senator fromOhio | |
| In office March 4, 1861 – March 6, 1861 | |
| Preceded by | George Pugh |
| Succeeded by | John Sherman |
| In office March 4, 1849 – March 3, 1855 | |
| Preceded by | William Allen |
| Succeeded by | George Pugh |
| 23rd Governor of Ohio | |
| In office January 14, 1856 – January 9, 1860 | |
| Lieutenant | |
| 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 |
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| Spouses |
|
| Children | 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 sixthchief justice of the United States from 1864 to his death in 1873. He earlier served as the 25thUnited States secretary of the treasury from 1861 to 1864, during theAmerican Civil War in theAbraham Lincoln administration. Chase also served as the 23rdgovernor of Ohio from 1856 to 1860, and represented Ohio in theUnited States Senate from 1849 to 1855 and again in 1861. Chase is therefore one of the few American politicians who have held constitutional office in all three branches of the federal government, in addition to serving in the highest state-level office. From the 1850s onward, even as Chief Justice, Chase sought a presidential nomination that never came because he was considered inept.[2]
Born inCornish, New Hampshire, Chase studied law underAttorney GeneralWilliam Wirt before establishing a legal practice inCincinnati. He became ananti-slavery activist and frequently defendedfugitive slaves in court. Chase left theWhig Party in 1841 to become the leader of Ohio'sLiberty Party. In 1848, he helped establish theFree Soil Party and recruited former PresidentMartin Van Buren to serve as the party's presidential nominee. Chase won election to the Senate the following year, and he opposed theCompromise of 1850 and theKansas–Nebraska Act. In the aftermath of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, Chase helped establish theRepublican Party, which opposed the extension ofslavery into theterritories. After leaving the Senate, Chase served as the first Republican governor of Ohio from 1856 to 1860.
Chase sought the Republican nomination for president in the1860 presidential election, but the party chose Abraham Lincoln at itsNational Convention. After Lincoln won the election, he asked Chase to serve as Secretary of the Treasury. Chase served in that position from 1861 to 1864, working hard to ensure theUnion was well-financed during theCivil War. Chase resigned from the Cabinet in June 1864, but retained support among theRadical Republicans and unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination again for the1864 election. Partly to appease the Radical Republicans, Lincoln nominated Chase to fill the Supreme Court vacancy that arose followingChief JusticeRoger Taney's death.
Chase served as Chief Justice from 1864 to his death in 1873. He presided overthe Senate trial of PresidentAndrew Johnson during theimpeachment proceedings of 1868. Despite his nomination to the court, Chase continued to pursue the presidency. He unsuccessfully sought theDemocratic presidential nomination in1868 and theLiberal Republican nomination in1872.
Chase was born inCornish,New Hampshire, on January 13, 1808,[3] to Janette Ralston and Ithamar Chase, who died in 1817 when Salmon was nine years old. His paternal immigrant ancestor was Aquila Chase fromCornwall, England, a ship-master who settled inNewbury, Massachusetts, about 1640, while his maternal grandparents Alexander Ralston and Janette Balloch wereScottish, originally fromFalkirk.[4][5][6] His mother was left with ten children and few resources, and so Salmon lived from 1820 to 1824 in Ohio with his uncle, BishopPhilander Chase, a leading figure in the ProtestantEpiscopal Church in the West and the founder ofKenyon College.U.S. SenatorDudley Chase of Vermont was another uncle.[7]
He studied in the common schools ofWindsor, Vermont, andWorthington, Ohio, and atCincinnati College before entering the junior class atDartmouth College.[6] He was a member of theAlpha Delta Phi fraternity andPhi Beta Kappa,[6] and graduated from Dartmouth with distinction in 1826.[3] While at Dartmouth, he taught at the Royalton Academy inRoyalton, Vermont.[6] Chase then moved to theDistrict of Columbia, where he opened a classical school whilereading law underU.S. Attorney GeneralWilliam Wirt.[3] He was admitted to thebar in 1829.[6]
Chase married his first wife, Katherine Jane Garniss, on March 4, 1834. She died the following year after giving birth to their daughter, who died a few years later. He married his second wife, Eliza Ann Smith, on September 26, 1839. Their daughter,Kate Chase, was born in 1840. Eliza died fromconsumption when Kate was five years old. Chase's third wife, Sarah Bella Dunlop Ludlow, also died from consumption. After her death, he did not remarry.[8]
TheSalmon P. Chase Birthplace and childhood home still stands in Cornish, New Hampshire.[citation needed]
Chase moved to a country home nearLoveland, Ohio,[9] and practiced law inCincinnati from 1830.[10] He rose to prominence for his authoritative compilation of the state's statutes,[3] which long remained the standard work on the topic.
From the beginning, despite the risk to his livelihood,[3] he defended people who had escapedslavery and those who were tried for assisting them, notably in theMatilda Case in 1837.[3][11] He became particularly devoted to theabolition of slavery after the death of his first wife, Katherine Jane Garniss, in 1835, shortly after their March 1834 wedding. This event was a spiritual reawakening for him. He worked initially with theAmerican Sunday School Union.[11] At a time when public opinion in Cincinnati was dominated bySouthern business connections, Chase, influenced by local events, including the attack on the press ofJames G. Birney during theCincinnati riots of 1836, associated himself with the anti-slavery movement. Chase was also a member of the literarySemi-Colon Club; its members includedHarriet Beecher Stowe andCalvin Ellis Stowe.[12] Chase became the leader of the political reformers, as opposed to theGarrisonian abolitionist movement.[citation needed]
For his defense of people arrested in Ohio under theFugitive Slave Act of 1793, Chase was dubbed the "Attorney General for Fugitive Slaves."[13] His argument in the case ofJones v. Van Zandt on the constitutionality of fugitive slave laws before theU.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 thefederal government was not empowered by theConstitution 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 againstJohn Van Zandt was upheld.[14]
Though elected as aWhig to a one-year term on the Cincinnati City Council in 1840,[15][16] Chase left that party the next year.[16] In the 1840s, he helped to form theLiberty Party.[17] For seven years, Chase was the leader of theLiberty 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 theBarnburners or Van Buren Democrats of New York to form theFree Soil Party.[citation needed]
Chase drafted the Free-Soil platform,[18] and it was chiefly through his influence thatVan Buren was their nominee for president in 1848.[citation needed] In 1849, Chase was elected to the U.S. Senate by the Ohio legislature as a Free Soiler. 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 associations with the Liberty and Free Soil parties, Chase considered himself an "Independent Democrat" or a "Free Democrat".[17]
While serving in the Senate (1849–1855), Chase was an anti-slavery champion. He argued against theCompromise of 1850[19] and theKansas–Nebraska Act of 1854.[20] After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation and the subsequentviolence in Kansas, Chase helped form the Republican Party with formerWhigs and anti-slavery members of theAmerican Party.[21] The "Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States", written by Chase and Giddings, and published inThe New York Times on January 24, 1854, was 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, andprison reform.[6]
In 1860, Chase sought the Republican nomination for president, with Massachusetts GovernorNathaniel Banks as his running mate.[22] With the exception ofWilliam H. Seward, Chase was the most prominent Republican in the country and had done more to end slavery than any other Republican. However, he opposed a "protective tariff," favored by most other Republicans, and his record of collaboration with Democrats annoyed the many Republicans who were former Whigs. At the1860 Republican National Convention, he got 49 votes on the first ballot,[23] but he had little support outside of Ohio.Abraham Lincoln won the nomination, and Chase supported him.
Chase was elected by the legislature as a Republican to the U.S. Senate from Ohio in 1860. However, he resigned shortly after taking his seat in order to becomeSecretary of the Treasury under Lincoln.[6] This was despite no prior financial experience.[24] He was a participant in the February 1861Peace Conference in Washington, a meeting of leading American politicians held in an effort to resolve the burgeoningsecession crisis and to preserve the Union on the eve of the Civil War.[citation needed]
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 ofpaper 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 theCongress to approve them. It secured an immediate market for government bonds and provided a permanent, uniform, and stable national currency. Chase ensured that the Union could sell debt to pay for the war effort. He worked withJay Cooke & Company to successfully manage the sale of $500 million (~$12.2 billion in 2024) in government war bonds (known as 5/20s) in 1862.[25]
The first U.S. federal currency, the greenbackdemand note, was printed in 1861–1862 during Chase's tenure as Secretary of the Treasury, and it was his responsibility to design the notes. In an effort to increase the public's recognition of him, Chase put his own face on a variety of U.S. paper currency, starting with the $1 bill, possibly to further his political career.[26] It was engraved byJoseph Prosper Ourdan.
On May 5, 1862, Chase accompanied President Lincoln, Secretary of WarEdwin M. Stanton, and Brigadier GeneralEgbert Ludovicus Viele in what would become a pivotal week for Union forces. The presidential party left theWashington Navy Yard aboard a five-gun Treasury cutter,Miami,[27][28] bound forFort Monroe "to ascertain by personal observation whether some further vigilance and vigor might not be infused into the operations of the army and navy at that point" to determine whetherNorfolk could be captured. After a 27-hour trip, theMiami reached Fort Monroe on the night of May 6. Chase went with Major GeneralJohn E. Wool, in command of the Federals at Fort Monroe, to inspect beach locations for a potential troop landing and relayed to Lincoln that he and General Wool had found "a good and convenient landing place" on the south shore, safely away from the Confederates' ironclad, theCSSVirginia.[29] Chase's participation in the reconnaissance ended with the surrender of Norfolk and the destruction of theVirginia.[30]
On October 10, 1862, Secretary of the NavyGideon Welles wrote that "a scheme for permits, special favors, Treasury agents, and improper management" existed and was arranged by Treasury Secretary Chase for GeneralJohn A. Dix. The motive of Chase appeared to be for political influence and not for financial gain.[32]
Perhaps Chase's chief defect was an insatiable desire for high office.[33] 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."[34]
He also tried to pressure Lincoln by repeatedly threatening resignation,[35] which he knew would cause Lincoln difficulties with the Radical Republicans.
To honor Chase for introducing the modern system ofbanknotes, 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.[36]
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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 itspresidential 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.[37] But to placate the party's Radical wing, Lincoln mentioned Chase as a potential Supreme Court nominee.
WhenChief JusticeRoger 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,[38] 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 admitJohn Rock to the Supreme Court Bar, making him the first African-American attorney eligible to argue cases before the Supreme Court.[39][40]
Among his more significant decisions while on the Court were:
As Chief Justice, Chase also presided atthe impeachment trial of U.S. President Andrew Johnson in 1868. As the justice responsible for the4th Circuit, Chase also would have been one of two judges at the trial ofJefferson Davis (who was imprisoned atFort Monroe in Virginia), because trial for major crimes such astreason required two judges. However, Davis's best defense would be that he forfeited U.S. citizenship upon secession, and therefore could not have committed treason. Convicting Davis could also interfere with Chase's presidential ambitions, described below. After the passage of theFourteenth Amendment in 1868, Chase invited Davis's lawyer to meet with him privately, and explained his theory that Section 3 of the new Amendment prohibited imposing further punishment on former Confederates. When Davis's lawyer repeated this argument in open court, Chase dismissed the case, over the objection of his colleague, U.S. District JudgeJohn Curtiss Underwood, and the government chose not to appeal the dismissal to the U.S. Supreme Court.[43]
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In 1868, Ohio's leading CopperheadClement L. Vallandigham worked to secure Chase the Democratic nomination for president.[44] In 1872 Chase helped found theLiberal Republican Party, unsuccessfully seeking its presidential nomination. Chase was also an activeFreemason.[45]
Time after time Chase sought a presidential nomination that never came, even when he was Chief Justice in1868 and 1872. Perceptive critics said his "inordinate ambition" made him "irresolute and wavering."[46] Biographer Frederick J. Blue concludes he was an "inept politician."[47]. As early as 1868, Chase concluded that:
Congress was right in not limiting, by its reconstruction acts, the right ofsuffrage 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.[48]
A few months before his death, Chase found himself in the minority of a 5–4 ruling in theSlaughter-House Cases, which greatly limited the scope of the powers given the federal government under theFourteenth Amendment to protect Americans from state violations of their civil rights. With the other dissenters, Chase joined the dissent of JusticeStephen J. Field that the majority opinion effectively rendered the Fourteenth Amendment a "vain and idle enactment."[49][50]
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 GeneralGeorge Henry Williams highlighted Chase's "early, continued and effectual labours for the universal freedom of man."[51]
Chase died of a stroke in New York City on May 7, 1873.[3] On May 11,The New-York Times published a report on his funeral.[52] His remains were first interred inOak Hill Cemetery inWashington, D.C., then re-interred in October 1886 inSpring Grove Cemetery,Cincinnati, Ohio.[53][54][55] Chase had been an active member ofSt. Paul Episcopal Cathedral, Cincinnati.Chase's birthplace in New Hampshire was declared aNational Historic Landmark in 1975.
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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 woolcrêpe, with black crêpe hung over the Court's entrance.[56]
TheChase National Bank, a predecessor ofChase Manhattan Bank which is nowJPMorgan Chase, was named in his honor, though he had no affiliation with it, financial or otherwise.[57][58]
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.[59]
In May 1865, Chase was elected a 3rd class companion of theMilitary Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS). MOLLUS was an organization ofUnion 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 theUnited States $10,000 bill, the largest denomination of U.S. currency to publicly circulate. The bill was last printed in 1945. In 1969, theFederal Reserve began withdrawing high-denomination bills from circulation, and as of 2009, only 336 $10,000 bills had not been returned for destruction.[60]
Chase County, Kansas,Chase City, Virginia, and towns named "Chaseville" in Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina (from 1868 to 1871), New York, Ohio, and Tennessee were named in his honor.Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio, and Chase Hall, the main barracks and dormitory at theUnited States Coast Guard Academy, are named for Chase in honor of his service asSecretary of the Treasury, and the United States Coast Guard cutterChase (WHEC 718) is named for him, as are Chase Hall at theHarvard Business School, Chase House at theTuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, and theSalmon P. Chase College of Law atNorthern Kentucky University. He is featured on aNew Hampshire historical marker (number 76) alongNew Hampshire Route 12A in Cornish.[61]
Although not referred to by name, Chase was portrayed byMontagu Love in the 1942 filmTennessee Johnson and appears during Andrew Johnson's impeachment scenes. Chase was also portrayed byJosh Stamberg in the 2013 movieSaving Lincoln.[62]
Chase was portrayed by Mark Rand in the 2024Apple TV+ miniseries seriesManhunt.[63]
Chase is also referenced in the TV animated adult showArcher as the man on the $10,000 bill.[citation needed]
It is a coincidence that his county home near Loveland, later came into the possession, for a few years, of Judge Charles J. Hunt, during the years the latter occupied the local Common Pleas Court bench.
