Chase, Salmon Portland,

Chase was elected governor of Ohio in 1855 at the head of a Republican ticket that was dominated by Know-Nothings; by 1857, when he was reelected, he was a leading member of the new Republican party. He was a splendid figure of a man, a "sculptor's ideal of a President," and few Americans have ever gone after that high office with more determination—or less success. He sought the Republican nomination in 1860, but since he lacked the full support of even his own state's delegation and since many considered him an extreme abolitionist, his chance passed quickly.

Again elected to the Senate, Chase served only two days in Mar., 1861, before resigning to become Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury. In that difficult position he took part in framing for Congress the new fiscal legislation necessitated by the Civil War, collected new taxes, placed unprecedentedly large loans with reluctant investors, and directed vast expenditures. To assist in government financing and also to improve the status of the currency, he proposed the national bank system (established in Feb., 1863), which is generally considered his greatest achievement. Ambition and a high regard for his own worth made Chase a difficult man to work with; after refusing four previous attempts, Lincoln finally accepted Chase's resignation on June 29, 1864.

Chase failed in his effort to secure the presidential nomination, but he remained an important national figure, and on Dec. 6, 1864, after the death of Roger B. TaneyTaney, Roger Brooke
, 1777–1864, American jurist, 5th chief justice of the United States (1836–64), b. Calvert co., Md., grad. Dickinson College, 1795. Early Life

Taney was born of a wealthy slave-owning family of tobacco farmers.
..... Click the link for more information. , Lincoln appointed Chase chief justice of the United States. He took a moderate stand in most of the important ReconstructionReconstruction,
1865–77, in U.S. history, the period of readjustment following the Civil War. At the end of the Civil War, the defeated South was a ruined land. The physical destruction wrought by the invading Union forces was enormous, and the old social and economic
..... Click the link for more information.  cases. His dissenting opinion in the Slaughterhouse CasesSlaughterhouse Cases,
cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1873. In 1869 the Louisiana legislature granted a 25-year monopoly to a slaughterhouse concern in New Orleans for the stated purpose of protecting the people's health.
..... Click the link for more information.  subsequently became the accepted position of the courts as to the restrictive force of the Fourteenth Amendment. On the other hand, his decision (1870) in Hepburn v. Griswold (see Legal Tender casesLegal Tender cases,
lawsuits brought to the U.S. Supreme Court involving the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Act of 1862, which was passed to meet currency needs during the Civil War.
..... Click the link for more information. ) was soon reversed. For his fairness in presiding over the Senate in the impeachment trial of President Andrew JohnsonJohnson, Andrew,
1808–75, 17th President of the United States (1865–69), b. Raleigh, N.C. Early Life

His father died when Johnson was 3, and at 14 he was apprenticed to a tailor.
..... Click the link for more information. , he was furiously denounced by his old radical friends. Chase persisted in seeking the presidency, but neither the Democrats in 1868 nor the Liberal Republicans in 1872 were interested in him.

Bibliography

See biography by A. B. Hart (1899, repr. 1969); D. H. Donald, ed., Inside Lincoln's Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase (1954, repr. 1970); J. W. Schuckers, Life and Public Services of Salmon P. Chase (1874, repr. 1970).