Category:   Union Statesman     Born:   13 Jan 1808  at  Cornish, New Hampshire, US       Died:   7 May 1873  at  New York, NY, US

Overview:

Served as Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury.

Biography:

Born on January 13, 1808, in Cornish, New Hampshire, Salmon Portland Chase grew up with his uncle, an Episcopal Bishop, in Ohio. In 1828, he graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. After college, he moved to the nation’s capital, where he worked as a teacher while studying law under then U.S. Attorney General, William Wirt. In 1829, Chase was admitted to the bar and returned to Ohio where he began his legal practice. In 1834, he defended James Birney, a former slave owner turned abolitionist and editor of the Philanthropist, for harboring a runaway slave in violation of the Fugitive Slave Act. Before long, Chase was defending runaway slaves, earning him the nickname “Attorney General for Runaway Slaves.” In 1841, he became a founding member of the Liberty Party, and in 1848 was elected to the United States Senate on the Free-Soil ticket. A strong opponent of both the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Chase started the Anti-Nebraska Party, soon to become the Republican Party. The people of Ohio elected Chase governor in 1855 and again in 1857. In 1860, he vied for the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party. Not receiving the nomination, Chase was elected to the U. S. Senate. After just two days in the Senate, he resigned to become the Secretary of the Treasury for the Lincoln administration. Chase clashed with Lincoln and William Seward, Secretary of State, over the conduct of the war, and on four separate occasions, tendered his resignation, all four being rejected. In December 1864, President Lincoln appointed Salmon Chase to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (after he had resigned in October) and remained Chief Justice until his death. As Chief Justice, Chase performed one of his most important constitutional duties by presiding over President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial in the United States Senate. Chase died on May 7, 1873 in New York City and is buried in the Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

About | Contact