C: Carpenter through Curtis

See below for annotated biographies of Liberty Party leaders and members. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.

CARPENTER, Philo, Illinois, officer in the Liberty party. (Minutes General Liberty Convention Buffalo, New York, October 20, 1847.)



CARY, Shepard, 1805-1866, Maine, abolitionist, political leader. He served as member of the Maine House of Representatives in 1832, 1833 from 1839 to 1842, 1848, 1849, and 1862, and in the Maine State Senate in 1843 and from 1850 to 1853.U.S. House of Representatives, 1843, 1850-1853. Candidate for Governor in Liberty Party in Maine in 1854, lost.

(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



CHAPLIN, William L., 1796-1871, abolitionist leader, Farmington, New York. Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839-1840. Agent of the New York Anti-Slavery Society. He was known as “The General.”

(Dumond, 1961, p. 297; Goodell, 1852, pp. 246, 445, 463, 556; Harrold, 1995, pp. 60, 70-74, 110; Sernett, 2002, pp. 122, 130, 132-133, 310nn3,4; Sorin, 1971, p. 113; Radical Abolitionist)



CHASE, Salmon Portland, 1808-1873, statesman, Governor of Ohio, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, abolitionist, member, Liberty Party, Free Soil Party, Anti-Slavery Republican Party. “A slave is a person held, as property, by legalized force, against natural right.” – Chase.

“The constitution found slavery, and left it, a state institution—the creature and dependant of state law—wholly local in its existence and character. It did not make it a national institution… Why, then, fellow-citizens, are we now appealing to you?...Why is it that the whole nation is moved, as with a mighty wind, by the discussion of the questions involved in the great issue now made up between liberty and slavery? It is, fellow citizens—and we beg you to mark this—it is because slavery has overleaped its prescribed limits and usurped the control of the national government. We ask you to acquaint yourselves fully with the details and particulars belonging to the topics which we have briefly touched, and we do not doubt that you will concur with us in believing that the honor, the welfare, the safety of our country imperiously require the absolute and unqualified divorce of the government from slavery.”

“Having resolved on my political course, I devoted all the time and means I could command to the work of spreading the principles and building up the organization of the party of constitutional freedom then inaugurated. Sometimes, indeed, all I could do seemed insignificant, while the labors I had to perform, the demands upon my very limited resources by necessary contributions, taxed severely all my ability… It seems to me now, on looking back, that I could not help working if I would, and that I was just as really called in the course of Providence to my labors for human freedom as ever any other laborer in the great field of the world was called to his appointed work.”

(Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. 19, 30, 34, 61, 70-73, 76-78, 84, 123, 124, 177, 178, 209, 220, 225, 226, 228, 247, 248, 259; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 142, 176, 187, 197-198, 229, 246; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 4-5, 8-9, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 33-36, 61-64, 67, 68, 70-72, 76, 87, 89, 94, 118, 129, 136, 156, 165, 166, 168-169, 177, 187, 191, 193, 195-196, 224, 228, 248; Pease, William H., & Pease, Jane H. The Antislavery Argument. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965, pp. 384-394; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 46, 56, 58, 136, 173, 298, 353-354, 421, 655-656; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 585-588; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 34; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 4, p. 739; Hart, Albert Bushnell, Salmon Portland Chase, 1899).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 34:

CHASE, SALMON PORTLAND (January 13, 1808-May 7, 1873), statesman, secretary of the treasury under Lincoln, and chief justice during Reconstruction, was born at Cornish, New Hampshire. His line can be traced through nine generations to Thomas Chase of Chesham, England, and through six generations to the American emigrant, Aquila Chase, who settled at Newbury, Massachusetts, about 1640. From Newbury the Chases moved to Sutton, Massachusetts, and later to Cornish, a frontier community on the Connecticut River. The Cornish farmer, Ithamar Chase, father of Salmon, held various state and local offices and was in politics a Federalist; the mother, Janette Ralston, was a woman of vigorous Scotch ancestry. Salmon was the eighth of eleven children. In his childhood the family moved to Keene, New Hampshire, where Ithamar became a tavern keeper. The boy received his early training in the Keene district school and in a private school kept by a Mr. Dunham at Windsor, Vermont.

The death of his father occurred when the boy was nine years old, and shortly after this he was placed under the stern guidance of his uncle, Philander Chase [q.v.], bishop of Ohio, a vigorous pioneer leader in the Protestant Episcopal Church. For two years, the boy lived with the bishop at Worthington, near Columbus, Ohio, entering the church school which the bishop conducted. His days at Worthington were devoted to classical studies, and he was at this time confirmed in the Episcopal Church; but his uncle's hope of making him an Episcopal clergyman was not realized. When Bishop Chase became president of Cincinnati College in the fall of 1821 Salmon entered the college; and a very serious student he seems to have been, to judge by his own statement that he had little to do with college pranks but spent much time "in reading, either under the bishop's direction, or at my own will." "I used to meditate a great deal," he added, "on religious topics; for my sentiments of religious obligation and . . . responsibility were profound" (Schuckers, p. 16). Leaving Cincinnati after less than a year, he spent some months in preparatory study, and then entered as a junior in Dartmouth College, from which he graduated without marked distinction in 1826. He then solicited the influence of another uncle, Dudley Chase, United States senator from Vermont, for a government clerkship; but, this being refused, he conducted a school for boys in Washington, having at one time under his charge sons of all but one of the members of John Quincy Adams's cabinet. In Washington and Baltimore he frequently visited in the cultured home of William Wirt [q.v.]; and his otherwise somber diary glows with youthful romance and sprightliness as it records the evenings spent in the company of the charming Wirt daughters.

Having determined upon his career, he read law under the nominal supervision of Wirt; and with scant legal preparation he was admitted to the bar on December 14, 1829. The following year he settled in Cincinnati, where in addition to legal duties he was soon occupied with anti-slavery activities and with various literary ventures. In 1830 he assisted in organizing the Cincinnati Lyceum which presented a series of lectures, and became himself a lecturer and magazine contributor. In his lecture-essay on the "Life and Character of Henry Brougham" (North American Review, July 1831) his reforming instinct was manifest in his pointed comments on legal abuses of the time. While waiting for clients the lawyer-author sought unsuccessfully to establish a literary magazine for the West, and then turned his energies into the compilation of the Statutes of Ohio (3 volumes, Cinn., 1833-35), a standard work which required heavy labor in the preparation and proved most serviceable to lawyers.

The events of Chase's private life are intimately related in his diary and family memoranda. Three marriages are recorded: the first to Katherine Jane Garniss (March 4, 1834), who died December 1, 1835; the second to Eliza Ann Smith (September 26, 1839), who died September 29, 1845; and the third to Sarah Bella Dunlop Ludlow (November 6, 1846), who died January 13, 1852. Six daughters were born to him, of whom four died when very young. The births and deaths of his children, and the loss of his wives, are recorded in his diary with a revealing tenderness and a grief which takes refuge in religion. Two children reached maturity: the brilliant Katherine, daughter of his second wife, who became the wife of Governor William Sprague of Rhode Island, and Janette, daughter of his third wife, who became Mrs. William S. Hoyt of New York City.

Despite scornful opposition, Chase prominently defended escaping slaves, and was called the "attorney-general for runaway negroes." He labored unsuccessfully to obtain the release of Matilda, a slave woman befriended by J. G. Birney; and when Birney himself was indicted for harboring a fugitive, Chase carried the case to the supreme court of Ohio, where he made a vigorous argument, contending that Matilda, having been voluntarily brought into a free state by her master, became free (Birney vs. Ohio, 8 Ohio, 230). Unwilling to commit itself to the Chase doctrine with which it was evidently impressed, the court directed the dismissal of the indictment against Birney on merely technical grounds. On another occasion Chase defended Vanzandt (the original of John Van Trompe in Uncle Tom's Cabin), prosecuted for aiding the escape of slaves from Kentucky. This case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and in its argument Chase was associated with William H. Seward, both giving their services without compensation. Chase contended that the federal government under the Constitution had "nothing whatever to do, directly, with slavery"; that "no claim to persons as property can be maintained under any ... law of the United States"; and that the fugitive-slave act of 1793 was unconstitutional. The case was lost for his client; but it did much to bring Chase into prominence.

In politics Chase subordinated party interests to the central issue of slavery. Though formerly a Whig, he joined the Liberty party after the nomination of Birney in 1840; and in various of the conventions of this party, state and national, he was an outstanding leader. The resolutions of the Buffalo convention of August 1843 came chiefly from his pen; and the Southern and Western Liberty Convention at Cincinnati in 1845 (designed as a rallying point for anti-slavery sentiment in the Middle West) was mainly his work. He was active in the Free Soil movement of 1848, presiding at the Buffalo convention, and drafting in part the platform which declared for "no more slave states and no more slave territory." The power of the new party in the nation at large was shown by the defeat of Cass, whose choice had angered the anti-slavery Democrats; and in the Ohio legislature the Free Soilers used their balance of power in alliance with the Democrats to elect Chase to the United States Senate (February 22, 1849). By this time he had come to realize the weakness of a party grounded on a purely antislavery basis, and was turning his attention to the possibility of capturing the Democratic party for the anti-slavery cause.

Chase entered upon his senatorial career at the time of the mid-century crisis over the slavery question. Unwilling to temporize on this issue, and resenting the Southern leanings of the Democratic party, he opposed the compromise measures of 1850; and in 1854 he issued his "Appeal of the Independent Democrats," denouncing Douglas 's Nebraska bill as a "criminal betrayal of precious rights," warning the people that the "dearest interests of freedom and the Union" were in "imminent peril," and imploring all Christians to protest against "this enormous crime." In this "Appeal" we have the key-note of Chase's senatorial policy-a policy of writing slavery restrictions into national law wherever possible, and of paving the way for a new Democratic party that would be free from pro-slavery "domination." He introduced an amendment to Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska bill affirming the right of the people of a territory to prohibit slavery if they wished (as seemed to be implied in Douglas's "popular sovereignty" doctrine); but the amendment was emphatically rejected.

In the altered political horizon produced by the dissolution of the Whig organization and the rise of the Republican party, Chase naturally cast his lot with the Republicans. Meeting in Columbus in July 1855 the new party (perhaps best designated as an "anti-Nebraska" party) nominated Chase as governor; and in a triangular contest in which he had to combat the old Whigs and the old-line Democrats, while suffering embarrassment from his Know-Nothing friends, he was victorious. In 1857 he was reelected as Republican governor; and by this time he had become committed to the new party. As governor his administration was embarrassed by interstate conflicts over the fugitive-slave question, by a threat of Governor Wise of Virginia to invade Ohio in order to suppress alleged attempts to rescue John Brown (to which Chase sent a vigorous reply), and by corruption in the office of state treasurer. One of his achievements as governor was a reorganization of the militia system which added greatly to the state's military preparedness in 1861.

In 1856 Chase was an avowed aspirant for the Republican presidential nomination; but he did not even command the support of the full Ohio delegation, and his position at Philadelphia was much weaker than that of Fremont. Again in 1860 his wide prestige and his consistent record of anti-slavery leadership caused him to be prominently mentioned for the presidency; but his expected strength did not materialize in the convention at Chicago, since the Ohio delegation was again divided, and the firmness of his outspoken opinions caused him to be rejected from the standpoint of "availability." With only 49 votes out of 465 on the first ballot, and with dwindling support as the voting proceeded, his friends gave up the struggle in his behalf; and when the break for Lincoln became apparent, they threw their votes to the Illinois candidate, thus putting Chase in favor with the incoming administration.

When Virginia, in an effort to avert impending war, called the Peace Convention at Washington in February 1861 Chase attended as one of the Ohio commissioners; but he refused to compromise as to slavery extension, and his speeches in the convention, though disclaiming any intention to invade state rights, probably tended to confirm the Southerners' worst fears.

Chase was again chosen United States senator in 1860, but resigned to become Lincoln's secretary of the treasury, which office he held from March 1861 until July 1864. As director of the country's finances during the Civil War it was his task to borrow money from reluctant bankers and investors; to labor with congressional committees in the formulation of financial legislation; to devise remedial measures for a deranged currency; to make forecasts and prepare estimates in days when financial responsibility was diffused and scientific budgets were unknown; to trim the sails of fiscal policy to political winds; to market the huge loans which constituted the chief reliance of an improvident government; and to supervise the enforcement of unusual laws, such as that which provided for the seizure of captured and abandoned property in the South. The low state of public credit was reflected in the suspension of specie payments at the close of the year 1861; the high interest rate (over seven per cent) on government loans; the marketing of the bonds at a discount; the difficulty of obtaining loans even on these unfavorable terms and the height and instability of the premium on gold. Chase was fortunate in having the valuable assistance of Jay Cooke who, as "financier of the Civil War," performed the same kind of service in marketing bonds that Robert Morris and Benjamin Franklin did for the Revolutionary War. When the bill to provide for immense issues of paper money with the legal tender feature was under consideration in Congress, Chase at first disapproved, endeavoring to obtain support among bankers for his national banking system; but when this support failed he grew non-committal and later gave a reluctant approval. The country was thus saddled with the "greenback" problem without such active opposition as his judgment would have dictated. The national banking system, first established by law on February 25, 1863, was originated by Chase, who formally submitted his proposal in December 1862 in order to increase the sale of government bonds, improve the currency by providing reliable bank notes backed by government security, and suppress the notorious evils of state bank notes. This was perhaps his most important piece of constructive statesmanship.

On the major questions of the war Chase was called upon, as a member of the President's official family, to assist in the formulation of policies. He favored, in a qualified manner, the provisioning of Fort Sumter; urged the confiscation of "rebel" property; approved the admission of West Virginia (the legality and wisdom of which was doubted by certain members of the cabinet); gave reluctant consent to the surrender of Mason and Slidell; urged McClellan's dismissal; approved Lincoln's suspension of the habeas corpus privilege, and, in general gave support to those measures which were directed toward a vigorous prosecution of the war. The closing paragraph in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, invoking the "gracious favor of Almighty God," was penned by him; but he considered the President's policy of liberation weak, and did not approve the exceptions of whole states and large districts from the proclamation as issued. Chase never had that easy comradeship with Lincoln which Seward had; and the President never got on well with his minister of finance. To Chase Lincoln seemed to lack force; and he frequently complained of the chief's lax administration. He spoke with disparagement of the "so-called cabinet," considered its meetings "useless," and privately expressed distrust of the President's whole manner of conducting the public business. Often he was at odds with his colleagues, and many difficulties arose because of the presence of both Seward and Chase in the President's household-Seward the easy-going opportunist, and Chase the unbending apostle of righteousness and reform. In December 1862 the most serious cabinet crisis of Lincoln's administration arose when, in a Republican caucus of the upper House, certain radical senators, partisans of Chase, expressed lack of confidence in the President and demanded a "reconstruction" of the cabinet, by which was intended primarily the resignation of Seward. One of the senators thus wrote of the designs of the Chase men: "Their game was to drive all the cabinet out then force upon him [the President] the recall of Mr. Chase as Premier, and form a cabinet of ultra men around him" (Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, 1925, I, 604). Lincoln handled the situation by arranging a meeting in which the intriguing senators were asked to give open expression to their complaints in the presence of the cabinet. In this meeting Chase was placed in a very embarrassing position. With Lincoln and his colleagues in the room he felt impelled to speak favorably of cabinet harmony in the presence of senators to whom he is said to have remarked that "Seward exercised a back stair and malign influence upon the President, and thwarted all the measures of the Cabinet" (Ibid., p. 603). As a result of these bickerings both Seward and Chase resigned; Lincoln promptly refused to accept either resignation, and matters proceeded as before, except that, as the months passed, Chase's official position became more and more difficult. He honestly differed with Lincoln on essential matters; chafed at the President's inaction and "looseness"; became increasingly impatient at the slow progress of the war, and probably came to believe in his own superior ability to guide the ship of state. Though not quite disloyal to the President, he nevertheless became the center of an anti-Lincoln movement while retaining his position in the cabinet.

Early in 1864 many zealous Unionists, including Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, William Cullen Bryant, and Theodore Tilton, had reached the conclusion that Lincoln's administration was a failure; and a congressional committee of which Senator Pomeroy of Kansas was chairman sounded the call for Chase in a paper known as the "Pomeroy Circular," which was at first distributed confidentially but soon found its way into the press. The paper declared that it was practically impossible to reelect Lincoln; that his "manifest tendency toward temporary expedients" would become stronger during a second term, and that Chase united more of the needful qualities than any other available candidate. Chase, it appears, did not know of the circular until he saw it in a Washington paper; but his criticisms of the administration, as well as his willingness to rely upon the good judgment of those who thought that "the public good" would be promoted by the use of his name, were well known. An element of bitterness was injected into the Chase boom when General Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri, delivered an abusive speech against Chase in Congress in April 1864; and the friendliness of the President toward Blair was misconstrued, adding a further strain to the relations between Chase and Lincoln.

When the publication of the Pomeroy circular required an explanation, Chase wrote Lincoln of his entirely passive attitude toward the movement in his behalf, assured the President of his respect and affection, and offered to resign his secretaryship if the President should desire it. Lincoln's reply indicated that he had not been offended and that he desired no change in the treasury department. The Chase movement soon collapsed, partly from mismanagement, and partly for the lack of any solid foundation. The President's party managers played a trump card by setting an early date (June 7) for the Republican or "Union" nominating convention at Baltimore; and when a caucus professing to speak for the Union members of the Ohio legislature indorsed the President, Chase withdrew his candidacy.

He did not long remain in the cabinet. After various differences over appointments, he submitted for the office of assistant treasurer at New York the name of M. B. Field whom Lincoln found unacceptable because of influential opposition in the state. When Lincoln suggested that the appointment would subject him to "still greater strain," Chase replied that he had thought only of fitness in his suggested appointments, referred to the "embarrassment and difficulty" of his position, and, as on various other occasions, presented his resignation. Chase's diary indicates that he could have been induced to remain in the cabinet (Warden, post, p. 618); but, somewhat to his chagrin, Lincoln accepted the resignation, and he unexpectedly found himself out of office. "Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity," wrote the President, "I have nothing to unsay; and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relations which it seems cannot be overcome or longer sustained consistently with the public service."

In the depressing summer of 1864 certain factors seemed to be working for a revival of the Chase candidacy. Distrust of the President, combined with anger at his veto of the Wade-Davis reconstruction bill and depression due to the unfavorable military situation, caused certain anti-Lincoln men to launch a movement for another nominating convention "to concentrate the Union strength on some one candidate who commands the confidence of the country" (New York Sun, June 30, 1889, p. 3). The plan contemplated that Lincoln, renominated in June, should be induced to withdraw. On August 18, 1864, Horace Greeley wrote: "Mr. Lincoln is already beaten. He cannot be elected. And we must have another ticket to save us from utter overthrow" (Ibid.). Charles Sumner approved the movement; and various men who had been active in the earlier effort toward Chase's candidacy, notably Henry Winter Davis, gave it support. Whitelaw Reid, who was very close to Chase, induced the Cincinnati Gazette to come out for Lincoln's withdrawal. Chase's own attitude was at first receptive and non-committal. In September, however, the entire political situation changed with the fall of Atlanta and Republican success in Vermont and Maine. The proposed convention was not held; the whole "radical" movement was abandoned; its sponsors came out for the Baltimore candidates, and Chase himself participated in the campaign for Lincoln, making various speeches in the West.

When Chief Justice Taney died, October 12, 1864, Lincoln's choice fell upon Chase in spite of misgivings as to the former secretary's presidential ambitions-or, as some thought, the President may have felt that he was putting a perpetual candidate in an office where presumably his ambition would be silenced. The years of Chase's chief justiceship fell during the turbulent period of Reconstruction. Occupied with problems of unusual complexity in his judicial capacity, he by no means held aloof from political controversies; and the most determined efforts to put him in the presidency came while he wore the toga of judicial office. Though these years witnessed the fruition of cherished hopes in the eradication of slavery and the restoration of the Union, the satisfaction he might have felt in the accomplishment of these objects was clouded by post-war excesses and corruption which put him out of tune with the party of his later choice, while in his own person he suffered disappointment, affront, and injured dignity. He was probably the least happy of our chief justices. At the time of Lincoln's assassination his life was considered in danger and he was protected by military guard. On April 15, 1865, he administered the presidential oath to Johnson; and it seemed for a time that he might become a sort of mentor to the new president. On various occasions he approached Johnson with advice on Reconstruction policies, at times even drafting public statements to be delivered or issued by the President. Warmly advocating negro suffrage, and favoring the radical policy of Reconstruction, he started in May 1865 on an extended Southern tour which occupied two months and was devoted to confidential investigations concerning conditions in the states lately in "rebellion." At Charleston, South Carolina, and elsewhere he addressed colored audiences, advocating the enfranchisement of their race.

After the war Chase was confronted with the question of reopening federal courts in the South; but he delayed because of the conviction that subordination to the military authorities would be inconsistent with judicial independence; and when at length he did open the United States circuit court at Raleigh, North Carolina, on June 6, 1867, he carefully explained in his address to the bar that this was done only after the habeas corpus privilege had been restored and assurances given that the "military authority [ did] not extend in any respect to the courts of the United States." When planning to reopen the circuit court at Richmond, Virginia, he declined military protection for himself and the court, with the comment: "If I go to Richmond at all, I intend to have no relations with the military, except those which spring from the good-will which subsists between myself and some of the officers" (Warden, post, p. 659).

A painful duty confronting Chase in his capacity as circuit justice was that of presiding at the proposed trial of Jefferson Davis, who, after two years in military custody, was released to the civil authorities in May 1867 and placed under indictment for treason against the United States. The earlier stages of the case cannot be traced here; but on March 26, 1868, in the United States circuit court at Richmond, a grand jury brought in an elaborate indictment against Davis, charging treason under the federal law of 1790, which prescribed the penalty of death. Chase's reluctance to preside at the Davis prosecution may well have explained his repeated postponements in coming to Richmond to hold court. When he did appear he was annoyed by association on the bench with John C. Underwood [q.v.], federal district judge in Virginia, a man whose pronounced anti-Southern prejudices destroyed his judicial impartiality. In December 1868 a motion to quash the indictment was argued before Justices Chase and Underwood, Davis's counsel contending that any prosecution of the Confederate leader for treason would be inconsistent with the fourteenth amendment of the Federal Constitution, in which disability from office-holding, not death, was prescribed for those in Davis's position. Favoring the quashing of the indictment, Chase disagreed with Underwood; the disagreement was certified to the United States Supreme Court; and the Davis case was pending there when, on December 25, 1868, President Johnson issued an unconditional and universal pardon to all who had participated in the "rebellion." The consequent termination of the case, both at Richmond and at Washington, gave genuine relief to Chase (R. F. Nichols, "United States vs. Jefferson Davis,'' American Historical Review, XXXI, 266 ff.).

When the peak of radical fury was reached in the attempt to remove President Johnson, it fell to Chase as chief justice to preside over the Senate sitting as a court of impeachment. The flimsiness of the charges betrayed the whole movement as a partisan attack upon the President because of his opposition to the Stevens-Sumner-Wade policy of Reconstruction; and the great danger was that the judicial character of the whole proceeding would be a mere pretense. Denying that the Senate was a court, the anti-Johnson group sought to subordinate the chief justice as a figurehead, to exclude ordinary rules of evidence, to suppress essential testimony, to deny adequate opportunities for defense, to intimidate individual senators, and to rush the whole proceeding through with railroad speed. Chase, however, refused to accept the role of puppet and effectively asserted his prerogatives as presiding judge. Characteristically, he began by lecturing the Senate for receiving articles of impeachment and framing rules of procedure before being organized as a court. For this he was criticized; and even Warden states that his "hero" erred in this respect; but the question was essentially a judicial one to which the Chief Justice had given earnest study, and his unwillingness to surrender his own functions is more to be admired than censured. He considered himself a part of the court, with the presiding judge's function of seeing that its proceedings from the outset were properly conducted. The Senate radicals were minded to deny him the casting vote; but he successfully defended this right, taking the opportunity, on the occasion of the first tie on a question of adjournment, to announce his vote and declare the tribunal adjourned. He was attacked as a partisan of the President, accused of seeking converts for acquittal, and assailed for playing politics in allowing his name to be used as a candidate for the presidency during the impeachment proceedings. As to the "stories" of rides in which he advised senators on their duty, he himself said that there was a "grain of fact sunk in gallons of falsehood" (Warden, post, p. 696). He did profoundly disapprove of the whole impeachment movement and did not entirely suppress his views; but there is no reason to reject his own statement that he did not seek to influence or convert any one (not even Sprague, his son-in-law), and that until the final vote he had no idea what the result would be.

Chase's incurable ambition for the presidency found its most striking manifestation in 1868, when, after obtaining no notice in the Republican convention, he became the center of a determined boom among the Democrats. Though certain papers, such as the New York Tribune, put forth his name, he made no effort for the Republican nomination. One should perhaps discount his statements in private letters that he would not take the nomination; for he had no chance whatever in that party, whose radical leaders had repudiated him, and whose emotional swing to Grant was irresistible. From the standpoint of party regularity it seemed to many a shocking thing that so prominent a Republican should not only fail to support his party's candidate, but should seek the leadership of the opposing party. For Chase, however, party regularity had never been an imperative motive; he had often described himself as an independent Democrat, and his attitude toward Grant was that of thorough disapproval and lack of confidence. Newspapers and influential leaders began to work for him; and he decided to allow his name to be used. In correspondence and interview he again showed a receptive attitude, and when asked for a public statement he defined his policy, emphasizing universal amnesty and universal suffrage, though realizing that such an attitude would injure his prospects (Schuckers, post, pp. 584-86). In the Democratic convention at New York an active group of Chase managers labored early and late ("Kate" Sprague turning politician and exerting her personal and social influence); and a "Chase platform" was circulated among the delegates. When it came to the voting, however, his platform was rejected; Ohio declared for Seymour of New York; and in an atmosphere of pandemonium Seymour was unanimously chosen for the presidential candidacy, with Chase's factious enemy, Blair, as running mate. In his disappointment Chase bore himself in silence and dignity and gave no countenance to efforts of his friends to obtain Seymour's withdrawal or launch a third-party movement.

Meanwhile the court over which Chase presided was faced by a menacing Congress and subjected to unusual strain in deciding a series of perplexing cases. In the Milligan case (4 Wallace, 2), it was held that military commissions for the trial of citizens are illegal, except where invasion or war actually deposes the civil courts. On the main point of this decision Chase concurred; but he dissented from that portion which held that Congress could not have provided for such trials if it had wished. At various times it seemed that the court would have to decide on the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts; but such a result, which would have precipitated an unseemly contest with Congress, was avoided. In Mississippi vs. Johnson (4 Wallace, 475) and Georgia vs. Stanton (6 Wallace, 50), the court refused to enjoin the President or a member of the cabinet from enforcing the Reconstruction Acts. This was in keeping with the court's practise of avoiding political questions. In the McCardle case (6 Wallace, 318), which again involved the legality of Reconstruction legislation, a decision was avoided by an act of Congress which deprived the court of jurisdiction; and the court permitted its functions thus to be limited. Further questions concerning reconstruction were considered in Texas vs. White (7 Wallace, 700), Cummings vs. Missouri (4 Wallace, 277) and Ex parte Garland (4 Wallace, 333). In these controversies the court held the Union to be indissoluble, declared secession a nullity, and denied the validity of test oaths intended to exclude ex-Confederates from officeholding. The application of the Fourteenth Amendment to certain state legislation was considered in the Slaughterhouse Cases (16 Wallace, 36), in which the court refused to set itself up as a censor of state laws or invade the domain of civil rights theretofore belonging to the states. Preferring a broader application of the amendment, Chase dissented from this opinion, whose main doctrine has since been abandoned by the court.

In 1870 Chase delivered the opinion declaring unconstitutional that part of the Legal Tender Act of 1862 which made the "greenbacks" legal tender as to contracts existing at the time the act was passed (Hepburn vs. Griswold, 8 Wallace, 603). As secretary of the treasury he had issued these government notes; and he was now roundly abused for holding them illegal. When the Hepburn decision was reversed in 1871 (Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wallace, 457), Chase dissented.

It appears that Chase would have accepted a presidential nomination by the Liberal Republicans in 1872; but, aside from other factors, the state of his health would have prevented such a nomination. His vote this year was given to Greeley (Schuckers, post, p. 593). On May 7, 1873, he died of a paralytic stroke in New York.

Chase was tall, massive, handsome in feature, and distinguished in figure and bearing. His portraits show a large head, with deep-set, blue-gray eyes, prominent brow, spirited nostrils, and firm lips. He was near-sighted and may have lacked magnetism and approachableness; but there was something in his mien that bespoke a determined will. His religious convictions were genuine and earnest. Reading his diaries we find how he chided himself on his sinfulness; how at times he declined communion from self-distrust; how he was equally disturbed if at other times his unworthiness failed to oppress him; how he repeated psalms while bathing or dressing; how he pursued his Scripture reading and prayer as a pure matter of conscience. He considered it sinful to waste time. Though fond of chess, he foreswore cards and avoided fashionable society. He once described a charming young lady as one with whom he would have fallen in love had she not been "fond of the gay world" and "disinclined to religion," which he valued "more than any earthly possession" (Warden, post, 190). Though he was socially at ease, a sense of humor was denied him; and when telling a story he would usually spoil it. Schuckers speaks of his "modesty"; but others considered him conceited and accessible to flattery. Though hardly the scholar in politics, he was of a literary turn; and in early life he sometimes expressed himself in verse. There are purple patches in his usually grave diaries to which the historian turns with real delight.

Having the "defects of his virtues," he was self-righteous, opinionated, and difficult to work with. Ambition colored all the more prominent phases of his career. That it diminished his usefulness, impaired his dignity, and blinded his judgment as to currents of public opinion, may be conceded; but it did not prompt unworthy bargains nor excessive electioneering. His moral courage was manifest in his opposition in the Cincinnati council to saloon licenses, his defiance of threatened violence, his advocacy of unpopular causes, and his refusal to truckle for the presidency. As war-time minister of finance he resisted alluring opportunities for private gain. Though puritanical, he was not a fanatic. His anti-slavery activities were held within bounds; and he never affiliated with the Garrison or Phillips type of abolitionist. The antagonism between him and Wade was of long standing; and he disliked the excesses of the radical school of Reconstruction while partly approving its program. His mental operations were steady rather than rapid; his public statements precise and devoid of verbiage. As a speaker he commanded attention rather by conviction and intellectual force than by the orator's art. His opinions as chief justice were characterized by a practical emphasis upon main principles rather than by brilliance or fondness for legal lore.

[Portions of Chase's elaborate diaries and letters have been published in Robert B. Warden, Account of the Private Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase (1874), in J. W. Schuckers, Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase (1874), and in the Annual Report, American Historical Association, 1902, volume II. The last mentioned volume includes some interesting letters from Chase to Sumner and a large number of letters from George S. Denison, who, as treasury official at New Orleans during the Civil War, wrote in full concerning conditions in Louisiana. The bulk of the original manuscript of the diary, together with letters and miscellaneous material, is to be found in the library of the Pennsylvania Historical Society at Philadelphia; and another large collection of Chase manuscripts (over one hundred volumes) is deposited in the division of manuscripts of the Library of Congress The biographical work by Warden is garrulous, extravagantly eulogistic, and of negligible importance, except as a source book; that of Schuckers, though of somewhat more value, is far from satisfactory. The short volume by A. B. Hart in the American Statesmen series (1899), though not free from error, is the best biography. The amusing campaign biography by J. T. Trowbridge, The Ferry Boy and the Financier (1864), is based in part upon a series of autobiographical letters written by Chase himself; but Chase's recollections were often dim, and Trowbridge drew freely upon his own fancy. A series of letters bearing upon the movement in 1864 to displace Lincoln in favor of Chase appeared under the title "Unwritten History" in the New York Sun, June 30, 1889. The following titles may also be noted: Donn Piatt, Memories of the Men Who Saved the Union (1887); Arthur M. Schlesinger, "Salmon Portland Chase, Undergraduate and Pedagogue," in Ohio Archaeology. and Historical Quarterly, volume XXVIII, no. 2 (1910); Norton S. Townshend, "Salmon P. Chase" (Ibid., volume I, 1887); Elbridge G. Spaulding, A Resource of War: History of the Legal Tender Paper Money Issued During the Great Rebellion (1869); Chas. Warren, The Supreme Court in U. S. History (1922); Hugh McCulloch, Men and Measures of Half a Century (1888).]

J.G.R.

Mr. Chase published a compilation of the statutes of Ohio, with annotations and an historical sketch (3 volumes, Cincinnati, 1832). See “Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase,” by J. W. Schuckers (New York, 1874). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 585-588.


Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 585-588:

CHASE, Salmon Portland, statesman, born in Cornish, New Hampshire, 13 January, 1808; died in New York city, 7 May, 1873. He was named for his uncle, Salmon, who died in Portland, and he used to say that he was his uncle's monument. He was a descendant in the ninth generation of Thomas Chase, of Chesham, England, and in the sixth of Aquila Chase, who came from England and settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, about 1640. Salmon Portland was the eighth of the eleven children of Ithamar Chase and his wife Jannette Ralston, who was of Scottish blood. He was born in the house built by his grandfather, which still stands overlooking Connecticut river and in the afternoon shadow of Ascutney mountain. Of his father's seven brothers, three were lawyers, Dudley becoming a U. S. senator; two were physicians; Philander became a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal church; and one, like his father, was a farmer. His earliest teacher was Daniel Breck, afterward a jurist in Kentucky. When the boy was eight years old his parents removed to Keene, where his mother had inherited a little property. This was invested in a glass-factory; but a revision of the tariff, by which the duty on glass was lowered, ruined the business, and soon afterward the father died. Salmon was sent to school at Windsor, and made considerable progress in Latin and Greek. In 1820 his uncle, the bishop of Ohio, offered to take him into his family, and the boy set out in the spring, with his brother and the afterward famous Henry R. Schoolcraft, to make the journey to what was then considered the distant west. They were taken from Buffalo to Cleveland by the “Walk-in-the-Water,” the first steamboat on the great lakes. He spent three years in Worthington and Cincinnati with his uncle, who attended to his education personally till he went to England in 1823, when the boy returned home, the next year entered Dartmouth as a junior, and was graduated in 1826. He at once established a classical school for boys in Washington, D. C., which he conducted with success, at the same time studying law with William Wirt. Mr. Chase gave much of his leisure to light literature, and a poem that was addressed by him to Mr. Wirt's daughters was printed and is still extant. In 1830, having completed his studies, he closed the school, was admitted to the bar in Washington, and settled in Cincinnati, where he soon obtained a large practice. In politics he did not identify himself with either of the great parties; but on one point he was clear from the first: he was unalterably opposed to slavery, and in this sentiment he was confirmed by witnessing the destruction of the “Philanthropist” office by a pro-slavery mob in 1836. In 1837 he defended a fugitive slave woman, claimed under the law of 1793, and took the highest ground against the constitutionality of that law. One of the oldest lawyers in the court-room was heard to remark concerning him: “There is a promising young man who has just ruined himself.” In 1837 Mr. Chase also defended his friend James G. Birney in a suit for harboring a negro slave, and in 1838 he reviewed with great severity a report of the judiciary committee of the state senate, refusing trial by jury to slaves, and in a second suit defended Mr. Birney. When it became evident, after the brief administration of Harrison was over and that of Tyler begun, that no more effective opposition to the encroachments of slavery was to be expected from the Whig than from the Democratic party, a Liberty party was organized in Ohio in December, 1841, and Mr. Chase was foremost among its founders. The address, which was written by Mr. Chase, contained these passages, clearly setting forth the issues of a mighty struggle that was to continue for twenty-five years and be closed only by a bloody war: “The constitution found slavery, and left it, a state institution—the creature and dependant of state law—wholly local in its existence and character. It did not make it a national institution. . . . Why, then, fellow-citizens, are we now appealing to you? . . . Why is it that the whole nation is moved, as with a mighty wind, by the discussion of the questions involved in the great issue now made up between liberty and slavery? It is, fellow-citizens—and we beg you to mark this—it is because slavery has overleaped its prescribed limits and usurped the control of the national government. We ask you to acquaint yourselves fully with the details and particulars belonging to the topics which we have briefly touched, and we do not doubt that you will concur with us in believing that the honor, the welfare, the safety of our country imperiously require the absolute and unqualified divorce of the government from slavery.” Writing of this late in life Mr. Chase said: “Having resolved on my political course, I devoted all the time and means I could command to the work of spreading the principles and building up the organization of the party of constitutional freedom then inaugurated. Sometimes, indeed, all I could do seemed insignificant, while the labors I had to perform, and the demands upon my very limited resources by necessary contributions, taxed severely all my ability. . . . It seems to me now, on looking back, that I could not help working if I would, and that I was just as really called in the course of Providence to my labors for human freedom as ever any other laborer in the great field of the world was called to his appointed work.” Mr. Chase acted as counsel for so many blacks who were claimed as fugitives that he was at length called by Kentuckians the “attorney-general for runaway negroes,” and the colored people of Cincinnati presented him with a silver pitcher “for his various public services in behalf of the oppressed.” One of his most noted cases was the defence of John Van Zandt (the original of John Van Trompe in “Uncle Tom's Cabin”) in 1842, who was prosecuted for harboring fugitive slaves because he had overtaken a party of them on the road and given them a ride in his wagon. In the final hearing, 1846, William H. Seward was associated with Mr. Chase, neither of them receiving any compensation.

When the Liberty party, in a national convention held in Buffalo, New York, in 1843, nominated James G. Birney for president, the platform was almost entirely the composition of Mr. Chase. But he vigorously opposed the resolution, offered by John Pierpont, declaring that the fugitive-slave-law clause of the constitution was not binding in conscience, but might be mentally excepted in any oath to support the constitution. In 1840 the Liberty party had cast but one in 360 of the entire popular vote of the country. In 1844 it cast one in forty, and caused the defeat of Mr. Clay. The free-soil convention that met in Buffalo in 1848 and nominated Martin Van Buren for president, with Charles Francis Adams for vice-president, was presided over by Mr. Chase. This time the party cast one in nine of the whole number of votes. In February, 1849, the Democrats and the free-soilers in the Ohio legislature formed a coalition, one result of which was the election of Mr. Chase to the U. S. senate. Agreeing with the Democracy of Ohio, which, by resolution in convention, had declared slavery to be an evil, he supported its state policy and nominees, but declared that he would desert it if it deserted the anti-slavery position. In the senate, 26 and 27 March, 1850, he made a notable speech against the so-called “compromise measures,” which included the fugitive-slave law, and offered several amendments, all of which were voted down. When the Democratic convention at Baltimore nominated Franklin Pierce for president in 1852, and approved of the compromise acts of 1850, Senator Chase dissolved his connection with the Democratic party in Ohio. At this time he addressed a letter to Hon. Benjamin F. Butler, of New York, suggesting and vindicating the idea of an independent democracy. He made a platform, which was substantially that adopted at the Pittsburg convention, in the same year. He continued his support to the independent democrats until the Kansas-Nebraska bill came up, when he vigorously opposed the repeal of the Missouri compromise, wrote an appeal to the people against it, and made the first elaborate exposure of its character. His persistent attacks upon it in the senate thoroughly roused the north, and are admitted to have influenced in a remarkable degree the subsequent struggle. During his senatorial career Mr. Chase also advocated economy in the national finances, a Pacific railroad by the shortest and best route, the homestead law (which was intended to develop the northern territories), and cheap postage, and held that the national treasury should defray the expense of providing for safe navigation of the lakes, as well as of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

In 1855 he was elected governor of Ohio by the opponents of the Pierce administration. His inaugural address recommended single districts for legislative representation, annual instead of biennial sessions of the legislature, and an extended educational system. Soon after his inauguration occurred the Garner tragedy, so called, in which a fugitive slave mother, near Cincinnati, attempted to kill all of her children, and did kill one, to prevent them from being borne back to slave-life in Kentucky. This and other slave-hunts in Ohio so roused and increased the anti-slavery sentiment in that place that Governor Chase was re-nominated by acclamation, and was re-elected by a small majority, though the American or know-nothing party had a candidate in the field. In the national Republican convention, held at Chicago in 1860, the vote on the first ballot stood: Seward, 173½; Lincoln, 102; Cameron, 50½; Chase, 49. On the third ballot Mr. Lincoln lacked but four of the number necessary to nominate, and these were given by Mr. Chase's friends before the result was declared. When Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated president, 4 March, 1861, he made Governor Chase secretary of the treasury. The difficulty that he was immediately called upon to grapple with is thus described by Mr. Greeley: “When he accepted the office of secretary of the treasury the finances were already in chaos; the current revenue being inadequate, even in the absence of all expenditure or preparation for war, his predecessor (Cobb, of Georgia) having attempted to borrow $10,000,000, in October, 1860, and obtained only $7,022,000—the bidders to whom the balance was awarded choosing to forfeit their initial deposit rather than take and pay for their bonds. Thenceforth he had tided over, till his resignation, by selling treasury notes, payable a year from date, at 6 to 12 per cent. discount; and when, after he had retired from the scene, General Dix, who succeeded him in Mr. Buchanan's cabinet, attempted (February, 1861) to borrow a small sum on twenty-year bonds at 6 per cent., he was obliged to sell those bonds at an average discount of 9½ per cent. Hence, of Mr. Chase's first loan of $8,000,000, for which bids were opened (2 April) ten days before Beauregard first fired on Fort Sumter, the offerings ranged from 5 to 10 per cent. discount; and only $3,099,000 were tendered at or under 6 per cent. discount—he, in the face of a vehement clamor, declining all bids at higher rates of discount than 6 per cent., and placing soon afterward the balance of the $8,000,000 in two-year treasury notes at par or a fraction over.” When the secretary went to New York for his first loan, the London “Times” declared that he had “coerced $50,000,000 from the banks, but would not fare so well at the London Exchange.” Three years later it said “the hundredth part of Mr. Chase's embarrassments would tax Mr. Gladstone's ingenuity to the utmost, and set the [British] public mind in a ferment of excitement.” In his conference with the bankers the secretary said he hoped they would be able to take the loans on such terms as could be admitted. “If you can not,” said he, “I shall go back to Washington and issue notes for circulation; for it is certain that the war must go on until the rebellion is put down, if we have to put out paper until it takes a thousand dollars to buy a breakfast.” At this time the amount of coin in circulation in the country was estimated at $210,000,000; and it soon became evident that this was insufficient for carrying on the war. The banks could not sell the bonds for coin, and could not meet their obligations in coin, and on 27 December, 1861, they agreed to suspend specie payment at the close of the year. In his first report, submitted on the 9th of that month, Sec. Chase recommended retrenchment of expenses wherever possible, confiscation of the property of those in arms against the government, an increase of duties and of the tax on spirits, and a national currency, with a system of national banking associations. This last recommendation was carried out in the issue of “greenbacks,” which were made a legal tender for everything but customs duties, and the establishment of the national banking law. His management of the finances of the government during the first three years of the great war has received nothing but the highest praise. He resigned the secretaryship on 30 June, 1864, and was succeeded a few days later by William P. Fessenden. On 6 December, 1864, President Lincoln nominated him to be chief justice of the United States, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Roger B. Taney, and the nomination was immediately confirmed by the senate. In this office he presided at the impeachment trial of President Johnson in 1868. In that year his name was frequently mentioned in connection with the Democratic nomination for the presidency, and in answer to a letter from the chairman of the democratic national committee he wrote:

“For more than a quarter of a century I have been, in my political views and sentiments, a Democrat, and I still think that upon questions of finance, commerce, and administration generally, the old Democratic principles afford the best guidance. What separated me in former times from both parties was the depth and positiveness of my convictions on the slavery question. On that question I thought the Democratic party failed to make a just application of Democratic principles, and regarded myself as more democratic than the Democrats. In 1849 I was elected to the senate by the united votes of the old-line Democrats and independent Democrats, and subsequently made earnest efforts to bring about a union of all Democrats on the ground of the limitation of slavery to the states in which it then existed, and non-intervention in these states by congress. Had that union been effected, it is my firm belief that the country would have escaped the late civil war and all its evils. I never favored interference by congress with slavery, but as a war measure Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation had my hearty assent, and I united, as a member of his administration, in the pledge made to maintain the freedom of the enfranchised people. I have been, and am, in favor of so much of the reconstruction policy of congress as based the re-organization of the state governments of the south upon universal suffrage. I think that President Johnson was right in regarding the southern states, except Virginia and Tennessee, as being, at the close of the war, without governments which the U.S. government could properly recognize—without governors, judges, legislators, or other state functionaries; but wrong in limiting, by his reconstruction proclamations, the right of suffrage to whites, and only such whites as had the qualification he required. On the other hand, it seemed to me, congress was right in not limiting, by its reconstruction acts, the right of suffrage to the whites; but wrong in the exclusion from suffrage of certain classes of citizens, and of all unable to take a prescribed retrospective oath, and wrong also in the establishment of arbitrary 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 sincere attachment to the constitutional government of the United States. I am glad to know that many intelligent southern Democrats agree with me in these views, and are willing to accept universal suffrage and universal amnesty as the basis of reconstruction and restoration. They see that the shortest way to revive prosperity, possible only with contented industry, is universal suffrage now, and universal amnesty, with removal of all disabilities, as speedily as possible through the action of the state and national governments. I have long been a believer in the wisdom and justice of securing the right of suffrage to all citizens by state constitutions and legislation. It is the best guarantee of the stability of institutions, and the prosperity of communities. My views on this subject were well known when the Democrats elected me to the senate in 1849. I have now answered your letter as I think I ought to answer it. I beg you to believe me—for I say it in all sincerity—that I do not desire the office of president, nor a nomination for it. Nor do I know that, with my views and convictions, I am a suitable candidate for any party. Of that my countrymen must judge.”

Judge Chase subsequently prepared a declaration of principles, embodying the ideas of his letter, and submitted it to those Democrats who desired his nomination, as a platform in that event. But this was not adopted by the convention, and the plan to nominate him, if there was such a plan, failed. In June, 1870, he suffered an attack of paralysis, and from that time till his death he was an invalid. As in the case of President Lincoln and Sec. Stanton, his integrity was shown by the fact that, though he had been a member of the administration when the government was spending millions of dollars a day, he died comparatively poor. His remains were buried in Washington; but in October, 1886, were removed, with appropriate ceremony, to Cincinnati, Ohio, and deposited in Spring Grove cemetery near that city. Besides his reports and decisions, Mr. Chase published a compilation of the statutes of Ohio, with annotations and an historical sketch (3 vols., Cincinnati, 1832). See “Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase,” by J. W. Schuckers (New York, 1874). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 585-588.

Chapter: “John Quincy Adams. - William H. Seward. - Salmon P. Chase,” by Henry Wilson, in History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 1872.

In the formation of the Liberty party Mr. Chase had taken an active part. From his pen were issued its platform and address, which have been regarded as the clearest and most discriminating papers of the struggle, upon the constitutional limits, provisions, and obligations concerning slavery and the slave States. This party, basing its action on moral grounds, the pioneer of all subsequent organizations which have been formed for the purpose of resisting slavery by political action, received nowhere else a more enthusiastic support: The nonresistant and non-voting policy found few adherents in Ohio; and the principle of meeting a political evil by political action encountered few who denied its soundness and necessity.

Under these circumstances, and with the fruits of those years of earnest toil, the election of 1848 resulted in a vote of thirty-five thousand for the Free Soil candidate for the Presidency, and in the choice of a legislature in which the friends of freedom held the balance of power. The Senate was equally divided between the Whigs and the Democrats. In the House there were thirty-four Whigs and thirty-four Democrats, and two members elected, in opposition to both parties, as Free Soilers. Several Democrats and Whigs were elected, however, by the aid of Free Soil votes, or by the union of Free Soilers with Whigs or Democrats. The legislature, thus chosen, had nearly the whole appointing power of the State. A United States Senator was to be elected, two judges of the Supreme Court were to be chosen, and a large number of less important offices were to be filled. The existence of what were familiarly termed the “black laws” had been made the subject of discussion during the canvass; the Democrats generally defending them, a majority perhaps of the Whigs desiring a modification, and the Free-Soilers demanding their unconditional repeal. Such was the composition of that legislature, and such was the work to be accomplished. It was the purpose of the friends of human rights to use their power in such a manner as would best inure to the interests of freedom. The results amply vindicated the fidelity and sagacity of their course. Without ignoring the overruling hand of Providence in what secured such large results by numbers so insignificant, from means so seemingly inadequate, and in spite of agencies which threatened defeat, instead of triumph, there are revealed in, this election and its immediate results striking illustrations of what may be achieved by a brave and persistent adherence to principle and a wise use of even the most inconsiderable means.

Soon after the organization of the legislature, the Free Soil members, including Townsend and Morse, the two independent members, and eleven who had been elected by the union of Free Soil and Whig votes, held a caucus. At that meeting a motion was made that each member should attend all the subsequent meetings of the Free Soil caucus, and pledge himself to support its decisions in regard to all matters likely to come up for legislative action. The eleven supported the motion; but the two, recognizing their paramount obligations to use their legislative powers only as fealty to freedom and their constituents demanded, refused to support the motion or to give the pledge. This refusal incensed their associates, who declared them to be no longer members of the Free Soil party of the House.

The meeting broke up without accomplishing the purpose for which it was called, and to the evident discomfiture of the Free Soil Whigs. The two independent members thereupon informed their Whig associates that, if they were not permitted to attend their meetings, they should constitute themselves the Independent Free Soil party of the legislature. This position gave them great power with both parties, and no doubt furnishes the key to the extraordinary results which two men, in a legislative body of one hundred and six members, were enabled to accomplish.

Holding the balance of power, they naturally became objects of solitude and electioneering effort with both Whigs and Democrats; the Whigs having the advantage, in that several of their members had been elected by the aid of Free Soil votes. The political objects of special interest and effort at that time were the election of a United States Senator, the proposed action in respect to the "black laws," and the election of judges of the Supreme Court. Of these objects the Democrats were specially solicitous concerning the election of judges, as there existed an impression that the question concerning election districts, in which they were particularly interested, might be brought before them for adjudication; the Free Soil members making it a condition precedent of their co-operation with any party that the “black laws " should be repealed.
The greatest triumph, however, of that remarkable election was found in the repeal of the “black laws," which disgraced the statute-book of the State, and which had been the objects of the special hostility of antislavery men, though they had found earnest Democratic defenders in the previous canvass.

These laws required the colored people to give bonds for good behavior as a condition of residence, excluded them from the schools, denied them the right of testifying in courts of justice when a white man was party on either side, and subjected them to other unjust and degrading disabilities. As Mr. Chase had been an avowed opposer of these inhuman statutes, they very properly selected him as their adviser, and requested him to draught a proper bill. This he did by preparing one that would secure substantially their object, but at the same time excite as little as possible the hostility of members who had at heart small sympathy with the purpose in view. Aiming to make the most of the favorable conjunction of circumstances, he incorporated into the proposed bill provisions which the most hopeful hardly expected to be enacted. He was sanguine, however, the Free Soil members were resolute, and the circumstances propitious. It was submitted to the examination and criticism of the Democrats, who unexpectedly accepted it and agreed to support it. How much the considerations they were expecting or had exacted from the Free Soil members had to do with their decision, and how much their indignation at the recent election of General Taylor, a Southern slaveholder, over their Democratic candidate, and their consequent relief from the responsibility for a national administration may never be known. It is sufficient for this purpose to record their assent to its provisions, and its adoption in the House by a large majority. In the Senate it was referred to a committee, who modified it somewhat, and it was then passed. The House concurred, and the bill became a law. Thus, by this wise use of the power their position gave them, was a humane and just law enacted, somewhat, indeed, in advance of the popular sentiment and moral convictions of the people, and yet, being enacted, it was not likely to be reversed, while the very struggle needful to enact it and its presence on the statute-book tended to educate the popular mind and to lift it up to the plane on which it rested. It relieved the colored people from all their most onerous disabilities, gave them entrance into schools, and awakened hopes of the future which have been far more than realized.

No question, however, of all that occupied and agitated public attention at that time excited deeper interest than that of the United States senatorship. The antislavery men were specially anxious to have a representative in the Senate, where the Slave Power had so long wielded an almost unquestioned sway, and where so few voices had ever been raised for freedom. Thomas Morris had spoken ably. In him Ohio had found a voice potential in behalf of human rights. Otherwise she had shared in the general recreancy, and had been either silent or had spoken at the behest of slavery. There was, indeed, John P. Hale, the Abolition Senator from New Hampshire, --strangely as those words sounded, -- that long-time stronghold of the Northern slavery-bestrode Democracy. But he was treated with contumely, and maintained his ground only by his talent and tact, by his unfailing wit and his unbounded good-humor.

Most earnestly, therefore, did the antislavery men, not only of Ohio but of the North, desire that advantage should be taken of this fortunate conjunction of affairs to select and send to the Senate some worthy coadjutor of the eloquent representative of the Granite State. The thoughts of many, perhaps most, of the friends of humanity and equal rights were instinctively turned to Joshua R. Giddings, who had for years maintained an unequal contest with the champions of aggression in the lower house of Congress. His incorruptible integrity, his stern and sturdy independence, his unflinching advocacy of the unpopular cause, pointed to him as the proper person to be selected for that high office, not only for the service to be performed, but for the honor richly deserved.

There were four candidates. The Democrats had selected William Allen; the Whigs, Thomas Ewing; and the two Free Soilers were divided in their choice between Mr. Giddings and Mr. Chase. Mr. Allen was not only proslavery in sentiment, but his views were extreme and violent. Mr. Ewing was of Southern birth, and though not antislavery in his opinions he was opposed to the extension of the peculiar institution. Mr. Giddings was an antislavery Whig. Mr. Chase, though Democratic in principle and sympathy, was not a member of the Democratic Party. He was decidedly antislavery in sentiment and action, and had rendered essential service to the cause of human rights.

In this state of the principal parties, it being understood that the Free Soil members would not give them their votes, it became evident that neither the Whigs nor the Democrats could elect their candidates. Nor could both of the Free Soil members be gratified with the choice of theirs. Some compromise must be effected. The Whigs, in order to defeat the election of the Democratic candidate, and, on the part of the antislavery portion, for the purpose of carrying out their views, were ready to substitute for Mr. Ewing some person of more pronounced antislavery sentiments. The two Free Soil members had agreed that either should vote for the candidate of the other whenever there should be a prospect of his election. The Whigs were ready, and most of them were anxious, with the exception of two members, to vote for Mr. Giddings. As, however, none of the Democrats would vote for him, and as the two recusant members obstinately refused to yield, after three unsuccessful ballotings his name was withdrawn. The Democrats, for the purpose of defeating the Whig candidate, and with the understanding that the Free Soil members would support their candidates for judges of the Supreme Court, having substituted the name of Hon. Rufus P. Spaulding, afterward Republican Representative in Congress, for that of Judge Read, whom they could not consistently support, expressed a willingness to cast their votes for Mr. Chase. By this arrangement he was elected on the fourth ballot. When the vote was announced, an enthusiastic antislavery man in the galleries exclaimed, "Thank God!" to which were many answering responses wherever Mr. Chase was known, not only on account of the service he had already rendered, but for the confident expectation cherished of the large additions of strength and prestige he would bring to the struggling cause on the wider and more conspicuous theatre of the United States Senate.

Many, however, were greatly disappointed that the choice did not fall on Mr. Giddings. Indeed, some of his friends felt that he had been deprived of a position to which, by his longer and more self-sacrificing service, he was fairly entitled. The cause, however, was evidently the gainer by the decision which was finally reached; for, from that time onward, freedom had two potent advocates in the councils of the nation, instead of one; both, too, occupying in their respective spheres positions to which each seemed best adapted, and in which each rendered yeoman's service, for which the slave and the slave's friends should ever hold them in grateful remembrance.

Source: Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Volume 2. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 167-173.



CHILDS, William H., New York, abolitionist leader, officer, Liberty Party, June 1848.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971; Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



CLARK, G. W., New York, Business Committee, Buffalo Convention, June 1848.

(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



CLARKE, Cyrus, fugitive slave, abolitionist.

(Sinha, 2016, p. 468; Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



CLARKE, George L., 1813-1890, Massachusetts, abolitionist. Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island. Member of Free-Soil and Liberty Parties.

(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)


CLARKE, Lewis, fugitive slave, abolitionist.

(Sinha, 2016, p. 468; Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



COCHRANE, James Jr., New Hampshire, officer in the Liberty party.

(Minutes General Liberty Convention Buffalo, New York, October 20, 1847).



CODDING, Ichabod, 1811-1866, born in Bristol, New York, anti-slavery agent, commissioned in 1836. Lectured against slavery. He traveled on anti-slavery lecture tour from 1838-1843, in New England. He helped co-found and edit anti-slavery newspapers. He organized state organizations for the anti-slavery Liberty Party. After 1843, he lectured in Illinois. He was active in the Anti-Nebraska Convention, Connecticut, in 1843. He worked with anti-slavery leaders Owen Lovejoy, William Allan, and others.

(Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, pp. 119, 120; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 186; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 152, 232, 247; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 673)


Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

CODDING, Ichabod, clergyman, born in Bristol, New York, in 1811; died in Baraboo, Wisconsin, 17 June, 1866. He became a popular temperance lecturer at the age of seventeen, and during his junior year at Middlebury, where he entered in 1834, interested himself so much in the anti-slavery movement that he obtained leave to speak publicly in its behalf. His addresses raised such a storm of opposition that his life was several times in danger, and the college faculty, fearing the popular fury, represented that his absence was without permission. Codding compelled them to retract this statement, and then; leaving the college, served for five years as agent and lecturer of the Anti-slavery Society, speaking continually in New England and New York. It is said that he never lost his self-command, though often assailed by mobs. He moved to the west in 1842, entered the Congregational ministry, and held pastorates in Princeton, Lockport, Joliet, and elsewhere. He also continued to lecture in the west, where he was greatly admired and loved. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 673



COLE, A. N., New York, Business Committee, Liberty party, 1848

(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



COOLEY, C.A., Brownhelm., Liberty party

(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



CROZIER, Hiram P., Secretary, Liberty Party, June 1848.

(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)



CURTIS, John, Ohio, President, Liberty Party, June 1848, Chairman Pro Tem.

(Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)

Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.