Salmon Portland Chase

CHASE, SALMON PORTLAND

Salmon Portland Chase served from 1864 to 1873 as the sixth chief justice of the SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. He was also a distinguished lawyer and politician, serving as U.S. senator from Ohio (1849–55 and 1860–61), governor of Ohio (1855–59), and secretary of the treasury (1861–64). Chase also sought the presidential nomination in every election between 1856 and 1872, even while sitting as chief justice. As a result, many criticized him for neglecting his judicial responsibilities in favor of his political ambitions. Despite his extrajudicial activities, Chase helped to navigate the Supreme Court through the dangerous political waters of Reconstruction, the period following the Civil War when the country attempted to rebuild itself and readmit the Southern states to the Union, preserving the Court’s powers when a Republican-dominated Congress sought to control both the presidency and the Supreme Court. As chief justice, Chase presided over the 1868 IMPEACHMENT trial of President ANDREW JOHNSON. Chase was an ardent opponent of SLAVERY his entire life, and in his last years on the Court he fought against a narrow interpretation of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, an interpretation that he surmised would allow future state legislatures to rescind the newly won rights of African Americans.

Chase was born January 13, 1808, in Cornish,
New Hampshire, the eighth of 11 children
in a family that had lived in New England since
the 1600s.His father operated a tavern as well as
a glass factory and distillery near Keene, New
Hampshire, and died when Chase was nine
years old. Chase had two prominent uncles who
aided him in his father’s absence: Dudley Chase,
who served two terms as U.S. senator from Vermont
(1813–17 and 1825–31), and Philander
Chase, who became bishop of Ohio for the
Episcopal Church and president of Cincinnati
College. When he was 12 years old, Chase
moved to Ohio to help on Philander Chase’s
farm. In return for his work, his uncle taught
him Greek, Latin, and mathematics in his
church school. Chase attended Cincinnati College
for a year then eventually returned to his
family in New Hampshire and entered Dartmouth
College, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in
1826.
After college, Chase moved to Washington,
D.C., where he studied law under Attorney General
WILLIAM WIRT. He passed the bar exam and
returned to Cincinnati to set up a legal practice.
In Cincinnati, Chase’s personal life was clouded
by tragedy.He lost three wives between 1835 and
1852. He had one daughter by each of his last
two wives.He remained single for the last part of
his life and was a devoted father to his two
daughters.
Chase strongly opposed slavery from his
early years, a position that owed much to his
deeply religious outlook. In Ohio, he was nicknamed
the Attorney General for Runaway
Negroes for his LEGAL REPRESENTATION of abolitionists
who had aided runaway slaves from
Kentucky.He even took two of these cases to the
U.S. Supreme Court—Jones v. Van Zandt, 46
U.S. (5 How.) 215, 12 L. Ed. 122 (1847), and
Moore v. Illinois, 55 U.S. (14 How.) 13, 14 L. Ed.
306 (1852)—both of which he lost. About his
nickname, Chase commented that he “never
refused . . . help to any person black or white,
and that he liked the office nonetheless because
there were neither fees nor salary connected
with it.”
In 1849 Chase was elected to the U.S. Senate
as a member of the Free-Soil party, which
sought to keep new states in the west free of slavery.
In the Senate, he and CHARLES SUMNER
became leading spokesmen for the antislavery
movement. He gained renown through his
opposition to the 1854 KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT,
which allowed each territory to conduct a popular
vote deciding whether it would permit slavery.
Shortly thereafter, he helped to found the
antislavery REPUBLICAN PARTY, and in 1855 he
was elected governor of Ohio. He was considered
for the 1856 Republican presidential nomination
but was passed over, and in February
1860 he was reelected to the U.S. Senate. In May
of the same year, he sought the presidential
nomination at the Republican convention in
Chicago. Chase and William H. Seward were
considered the chief contenders for the nomination,
but on the third ballot Chase’s supporters
gave their votes to ABRAHAM LINCOLN, thus giving
the man from Illinois the nomination. After
his election, Lincoln offered Chase and Seward
the respective posts of secretary of the treasury
and SECRETARY OF STATE. Chase then gave up
his seat as U.S. senator.
At the Treasury, Chase faced the difficult task
of financing a government that was engaged in a
civil war. As part of this effort, he helped to
establish a national banking system that gave the
federal government its first effective national
paper currency. Early in the war, Chase also
advised military leaders who sought guidance
from Washington, D.C. Chase was often
unhappy with the decisions of Lincoln and other
members of the cabinet and resolved that he
could do better as president. He therefore
opposed Lincoln for the Republican presidential
nomination in 1864. Chase had the support of
the more liberal wing of the Republican Party
but he eventually withdrew his name from consideration,
conceding to the more popular Lincoln.
In June 1864, after several disagreements
with Lincoln, Chase resigned from the cabinet.
Despite their differences, Lincoln admired
Chase, and in December 1864 he nominated
Chase to succeed ROGER B. TANEY as chief justice
of the U.S. Supreme Court.He nominated Chase
with the expectation that Chase would sustain
two extraordinary measures taken by the Union
during the war—the emancipation of the slaves
and the issuance of paper money to repay debt.
Both measures had caused great controversy,
and as a result many Americans had lost confidence
in the federal government.
Chase joined a Court with only three other
justices who consistently supported Republican
positions, Justices DAVID DAVIS, NOAH H.
SWAYNE, and SAMUEL F. MILLER, all appointed by
Lincoln. The Court was sharply divided over the
various issues surrounding Reconstruction. The
post–Civil War crisis deepened when Lincoln
was assassinated on April 14, 1865, and Vice
President Andrew Johnson became president.
Chase urged a moderate, conciliatory stance
toward the defeated South, a stance that eventually
alienated him from the Radical Republicans,
a faction of the Republican party that sought to
impose strict military measures and punitive
new laws on the states of the former Confederacy.
Like the Radical Republicans, Chase supported
expanded freedoms for African
Americans. Unlike them, however, he also supported
such measures as ending MILITARY GOVERNMENT
in the South, pardoning Confederate
leaders, and quickly restoring Southern states to
the Union. Chase’s moderation helped to spare
Jefferson Davis, president of the former Confederacy.
After the war, Davis had been imprisoned
in Virginia, part of Chase’s circuit, where the
government hoped to try him for TREASON.
Chase refused to hold a civil trial while the area
was still under military rule. Although a GRAND
JURY indicted Davis for treason, no action was
taken against him, and eventually the government’s
case was dismissed.
Many of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions
during Chase’s tenure involved the thorny issue
of Reconstruction. In March 1867, Congress
passed the Reconstruction Acts, which divided
the South into five districts and imposed military
rule. Reconstruction involved new problems
of constitutional interpretation as to the
federal government’s powers over the states. At
issue were questions not only of STATES’ RIGHTS
but also of the status of freed slaves. In one early
decision, EX PARTE MILLIGAN, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.)
2, 18 L. Ed. 284 (1866), Chase voted with the
Court in challenging Congress over Reconstruction.
The Court held that Congress could not
authorize military trials where civil courts were
still operating. The majority opinion warned of
the military’s “gross usurpation of power”—a
direct challenge to the Reconstruction Acts
passed by Congress. However, in later decisions
Chase voted to uphold congressional laws pertaining
to Reconstruction. In the 1867 Test Oath
cases—Cummings v. Missouri, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.)
277, 18 L. Ed. 356, and Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S.
(4 Wall.) 333, 18 L. Ed. 366—Chase disagreed
with the Court’s decision to strike down laws
requiring that priests and lawyers swear oaths of loyalty to the Union. In his dissenting opinion,
joined by Chase, Justice Miller declared that no
punishment was inflicted by requiring such an
oath and that Congress could impose such
requirements. Chase considered TEXAS V.
WHITE, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 700, 19 L. Ed. 227
(1868) to be the most important case of his
Supreme Court career. Chase, writing the
Court’s opinion, upheld the general principles
of Reconstruction, asserting that Congress, and
not the Supreme Court, possessed the authority
to recognize state governments as legitimate.
When Southern states sought to make cases
in court against executives of the federal government—
including President Johnson and Secretary
of War Edwin M. Stanton—Chase joined
the majority in dismissing those cases, thereby
aiding Congress in its Reconstruction fervor. In
Mississippi v. Johnson, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 475, 18 L.
Ed. 437 (1867), Mississippi, in the first court
case ever to name the president of the United
States as an individual party, attempted to prevent
President Johnson from enforcing certain
provisions of the Reconstruction Acts. Chase
dismissed the case, holding that preventing the
president from acting on congressional legislation
would cause a “collision . . . between the
executive and legislative departments of the government.”
This, in turn, would give the House
grounds to sue for the president’s impeachment.
This opinion proved prophetic, of course, when
Congress did attempt to impeach President
Johnson.
Chase’s public standing improved when he
ably handled the impeachment trial of President
Johnson in March 1868. The Radical Republican–
dominated Congress had voted to bring
impeachment proceedings against Johnson after
he dismissed one of their favorite members of
his cabinet, Secretary of War Stanton. The Senate
sat as a court of impeachment with Chase
presiding as judge. Chase frustrated Radical
Republican aims by sticking to procedural rules
and helping to bring about Johnson’s acquittal,
which passed the Senate by one vote. The public
acclaim occasioned by his handling of the
impeachment trial led Chase to make another
try at the presidency in 1868. That time, however,
Chase made known his desire to run as a
Democratic candidate, largely because his moderate
positions toward the South had endeared
him to Democrats. His efforts failed.
Although the Supreme Court under Chase’s
leadership rarely questioned congressional
Reconstruction measures after 1867, it did
declare other federal legislation unconstitutional.
Whereas before 1864 the Court had overturned
acts of Congress only twice—in
MARBURY V. MADISON, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 2
L. Ed. 60 (1803), and DRED SCOTT V. SANDFORD,
60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 15 L. Ed. 691 (1857)—
between 1864 and 1873 it voided ten pieces of
congressional legislation. These decisions
included the first of the Legal Tender Cases, Hepburn
v. Griswold, 75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 603, 19 L. Ed.
513 (1870)—but reversed later by Knox v. Lee
and Parker v. Davis, 79 U.S. (12 Wall.) 457, 20 L.
Ed. 287 (1871), heard concurrently—in which
Chase questioned much of his earlier work for
the Treasury when he declared the Legal Tender
Acts (12 Stat. 345, 532, 709) unconstitutional.
This decision created a temporary crisis of confidence
in the national currency. The Court
reversed this decision in 1871 after a change in
membership, with Chase sticking to his views of
two years earlier. Despite his participation in such judicial activism, Chase at other times
advocated judicial restraint. In his opinion for
the Licence Tax Cases, 72 U.S. (5 Wall.) 462, 18 L.
Ed. 497 (1868), in which he upheld a law that
taxed the sale of lottery tickets throughout the
United States, Chase wrote:
This court can know nothing of public policy
except from the Constitution and the
laws, and the course of administration and
decision. It has no legislative powers. It cannot
amend or modify any legislative acts. It
cannot examine questions as expedient or
inexpedient, as politic or impolitic. Considerations
of that sort must, in general, be
addressed to the legislature. Questions of
policy determined there are concluded here.
ULYSSES S. GRANT won the presidential election
of 1868, and from that time onward, the
power of Radical Republicanism began to wane.
Grant’s appointments made the Court a more
conservative body. In the SLAUGHTER-HOUSE
CASES, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 21 L. Ed. 394
(1873), Chase dissented from the Court’s narrow
interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment,
which was passed in 1868 and sought to
protect the rights of African-Americans against
infringements by state legislation. In its Slaughter-
House decision, the Court held that the
Fourteenth Amendment’s PRIVILEGES AND
IMMUNITIES CLAUSE protected only a few select
rights of national citizenship, such as the right to
travel. The Court did not interpret the amendment
as guaranteeing more fundamental rights,
such as the right to vote. Chase objected that the
Court’s opinion jeopardized newly won freedoms
for African Americans. It would take
another century before the Court would reverse
this narrow interpretation of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
Chase suffered a series of crippling strokes
beginning in 1870. Despite his failing health, his
daughter Catherine Chase and other admirers
put forth his name for the 1872 presidential
nomination. As had happened each time before,
his nomination came to nothing.He died May 7,
1873, after suffering a stroke while visiting his
daughter in New York City, and he was interred
in Spring Grove Cemetary in Cincinnati.
Although Chase did not achieve his highest goal
of becoming president, he nevertheless held
more high offices during his life than did any
other Supreme Court justice besides James F.
Byrnes and WILLIAM H. TAFT.More importantly,
Chase successfully guided the Court through
some of the most tumultuous years in the history
of the nation. His actions as chief justice
helped to preserve the powers of the Supreme
Court in the face of serious congressional challenges
during the extraordinary years following
the Civil War.

FURTHER READINGS
Blue, Frederick J. 1987. Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics.
Kent, Ohio: Kent State Univ. Press.
Cushman, Claire, ed. 1993. The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated
Biographies, 1789–1993. Washington, D.C.: Congressional
Quarterly.
Friedman, Leon, and Fred L. Israel, eds. 1969. The Justices of
the United States Supreme Court, 1789–1969: Their Lives
and Major Opinions. New York: Chelsea House.
Hyman, Harold Melvin. 1997. The Reconstruction Justice of
Salmon P. Chase. Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas.
Niven, John. 1995. Salmon P. Chase: A Biography. New York:
Oxford Univ. Press.

CROSS-REFERENCES
Loyalty Oath.