The Salmon P Chase Papers

The third volume of The Salmon P. Chase Papers documents Chase's career from early 1868--the beginning of his second terms as the governor of Ohio--through the pivotal election of 1860 and the first two years of his service as secretary of the Treasury in Abraham Lincoln's wartime cabinet. Now for the first time there is ready access to a crucial record of the nation's descent into civil war. The National Historical Publications and Records Commission provides financial support for the publication of The Salmon P. Chase Papers.

Salmon P. Chase first gained prominence during the 1840s and 50s as a leader in the anti-slavery movement and as a founder of the Liberty, Free-Soil and Republican parties, before becoming a Senator. This book sets out his correspondence with many prominent political figures of the day.

This fourth volume of the Salmon P. Chase papers covers the last 15 months of his tenure as Treasury secretary and concludes with his nomination as Chief Justice of the United States. Letters that document his increasing alienation from the Lincoln administration are featured.

This is the first of a proposed six-volume edition of the selected papers of Salmon Portland Chase (1808-1873), a notable figure in the anti-slavery movement and American politics of the 19th century. This volume includes his Civil War-era diaries and his account of a tour of the South in 1865.

"Chase wanted so much to make a name for himself in American politics that early in his career he considered changing his 'fishy' appellation to the more important sounding Spencer Paynce Cheyce. That alteration never came about, but even without a fancy name, the New England-born, Ohio-bred attorney devoted his life to public service at many levels of government. Chase served as Free-Soil Senator from Ohio, as Governor of that pivotal Midwestern state, as Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln, and as Chief Justice of the United States, although he never realized his primary ambition--the presidency. Complex, overly ambitious, and deeply religious, Chase perhaps undermined his presidential hopes partly by his strong antislavery stance, but primarily by his failure to organize systematically his drive for national office. Chase worked hard for the rights of fugitive slaves and became prominent in the antislavery movement and in the establishment of the Liberty and Free-Soil parties, but he was often accused of being concerned only with his personal advancement. Frederick Blue has done extensive research among Chase's voluminous and often hard-to-read correspondence, and has incorporated pertinent collateral primary and secondary sources as well, to produce the first modern biography of this key Civil War era personality."--book jacket.

From an acclaimed, New York Times bestselling biographer, a timely reassessment of Abraham Lincoln's indispensable Secretary of the Treasury: a leading proponent for black rights both before and during his years in cabinet and later as Chief Justice of the United States. Salmon P. Chase is best remembered as a rival of Lincoln's for the Republican nomination in 1860--but there would not have been a national Republican Party, and Lincoln could not have won the presidency, were it not for the vital groundwork Chase laid over the previous two decades. Starting in the early 1840s, long before Lincoln was speaking out against slavery, Chase was forming and leading antislavery parties. He represented fugitive slaves so often in his law practice that he was known as the attorney general for runaway negroes, and he furthered his reputation as an outspoken federal senator and progressive governor of Ohio. Tapped by Lincoln to become Secretary of the Treasury, Chase would soon prove vital to the Civil War effort, raising the billions of dollars that allowed the Union to win the war, while also pressing the president to emancipate the country's slaves and recognize black rights. When Lincoln had the chance to appoint a chief justice in 1864, he chose his faithful rival, because he was sure Chase would make the right decisions on the difficult racial, political, and economic issues the Supreme Court would confront during Reconstruction. Drawing on previously overlooked sources, Walter Stahr sheds new light on a complex and fascinating political figure, as well as on the pivotal events of the Civil War and its aftermath. Salmon P. Chase tells the forgotten story of a man at the center of the fight for racial justice in 19th century America.