Salmon Portland Chase was the rare Chief Justice who reached the office having wanted the presidency more. Born in New Hampshire in 1808, he became an antislavery lawyer in Ohio so devoted to defending fugitive slaves that opponents called him 'the attorney general for runaway negroes.' He helped found the Republican Party, served as senator and governor, and became Abraham Lincoln's secretary of the Treasury, where he created the national banking system and the first federal paper money — the 'greenbacks.' Ambitious to a fault, he angled for the presidency even while in Lincoln's Cabinet; Lincoln named him Chief Justice in 1864 all the same.
Chase led the Court through Reconstruction, among the most turbulent periods in its history. In 1868 he presided with dignity over the Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, which ended in acquittal by a single vote. On the bench he wrote Texas v. White, declaring the Union 'indestructible' and secession a legal nullity, and Mississippi v. Johnson, holding that courts cannot enjoin the president in the exercise of his duties. In a personal irony, he wrote Hepburn v. Griswold striking down the very paper-money system he had built as Treasury secretary — a ruling the enlarged Court reversed the next year. Still chasing the White House to the end, Chase died in 1873.
Texas v. White
1869Holding · The United States is 'an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States'; the ordinances by which the Confederate states purported to secede were legally void.
Role · Chase wrote for the Court.
The definitive judicial rejection of secession and a foundational statement on the permanence of the Union.
Read the opinion →Mississippi v. Johnson
1867Holding · A federal court has no jurisdiction to enjoin the President from carrying out his official duties, including enforcing the Reconstruction Acts.
Role · Chase wrote for the Court.
An early and enduring statement of the separation of powers and the limits of judicial control over the executive.
Read the opinion →Hepburn v. Griswold
1870Holding · The Legal Tender Acts making paper 'greenbacks' legal tender for pre-existing debts were unconstitutional.
Role · Chase wrote the opinion striking down the paper-money system he had helped create as Treasury secretary.
A rare instance of a Chief Justice repudiating his own handiwork; reversed one year later in the Legal Tender Cases (1871) after the Court's membership grew.
Read the opinion →No justice reached the center chair with a larger career behind him. Salmon P. Chase had been the antislavery bar's 'attorney general for fugitive slaves,' a Free Soil senator, governor of Ohio, and Lincoln's Treasury secretary — the man who created the greenback and put his own face on the dollar — before Lincoln made him Chief Justice in 1864. Start with Walter Stahr's Salmon P. Chase: Lincoln's Vital Rival (2021), the readable modern life; go deeper with John Niven's standard scholarly biography (Oxford, 1995). Both carry the same paradox: the most relentless presidential ambition in the Court's history, housed in one of its most consequential public servants.
The Bookshelf
The readable modern life, and the natural first read. Stahr — the biographer of Seward and Stanton — gives Chase his full scale: the Cincinnati lawyer who defended fugitive slaves, the Free Soil senator and Ohio governor, the Treasury secretary who financed the Union war and built the national banking system and the greenback, and finally the Chief Justice. 'Lincoln's vital rival' is the frame: Chase wanted the presidency his whole life, challenged Lincoln for it, and took the center chair without ever quite giving the ambition up. Simon & Schuster.
The standard scholarly biography, and the fruit of the same historian's years editing the Chase papers. Niven is the authority on the political Chase — the antislavery coalition-building, the Treasury, the maneuvering for a nomination that never came — and the soundest guide to a difficult, self-regarding man. The definitive modern life to Stahr's more narrative one. Oxford University Press.
The other modern scholarly biography, and the fullest account of the political Chase. Blue, a historian of the antislavery movement, traces the lifelong pursuit of the presidency and the coalition-building from the Liberty and Free Soil parties into the Republican Party that Chase did so much to create. Read alongside Niven for the politics of a man who was always running. Kent State University Press.
The classic life, from Houghton Mifflin's American Statesmen series, by the eminent Harvard historian Albert Bushnell Hart. More than a century old and shaped by the reverent conventions of the series, it remains a graceful narrative of the whole career and the natural gateway to the older literature. Houghton Mifflin.
The contemporary authorized life, by Chase's private secretary at the Treasury and published the year after his death — partisan and adulatory, but close to the documents and the man, and a primary source in its own right. Schuckers had the papers and the access; Robert B. Warden's rival 1874 Account, drawn from Chase's diaries, is the other contemporary life. D. Appleton.
The leading study of Chase as Chief Justice. The distinguished legal historian Harold Hyman builds the case for Chase's Reconstruction constitutionalism around two of his opinions — In re Turner, striking down the 'apprenticeship' peonage that re-enslaved freedpeople under the Thirteenth Amendment, and Texas v. White — and rescues him from the caricature of a failed, distracted Chief. For the Court as an institution, see also Jonathan Lurie's The Chase Court (2004). University Press of Kansas.
The scholarly edition — five volumes of Chase's journals and correspondence (1993–1998), edited by his biographer John Niven, and the documentary foundation for all modern work. The place to hear Chase directly: the diaries of a proud, pious, relentlessly ambitious man at the center of the antislavery cause, the war Treasury, and the Reconstruction Court. Kent State University Press.
Chase's Civil War diaries, edited by the great Lincoln scholar David Herbert Donald — the Treasury secretary's candid, often self-serving record of the Cabinet's inner life, from war finance to the feuds with Seward and the maneuvering against Lincoln. One of the essential primary sources on the Lincoln administration. Longmans, Green.
The one duty the Constitution reserves for the Chief Justice alone: in 1868 Chase presided over the Senate trial of President Andrew Johnson, and Stewart's fast, fair-minded account is the best popular narrative of it. Chase's insistence on judicial forms — real rulings, tie-breaking votes, a trial rather than a political lynching — shaped the proceeding that acquitted Johnson by a single vote. A Chief Justice at the strange intersection of the Court and the Senate. Simon & Schuster.
Chase's most enduring opinion, and the Court's constitutional verdict on secession. Holding that Texas had never left the Union — because 'the Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States' — Chase gave the Union cause its legal charter: secession had always been a nullity, and Reconstruction proceeded on that premise. The line is among the most quoted in the U.S. Reports. Free online.
The strangest turn in Chase's career. The man who as Treasury secretary had invented the greenback voted, as Chief Justice, to strike down the Legal Tender Acts that made paper money legal tender for existing debts — repudiating his own handiwork on constitutional grounds. The decision was reversed just fifteen months later, in the Legal Tender Cases (1871), after Grant's two new appointments remade the Court. The classic study in the distance between the statesman and the judge. Free online.
The only monograph on Chase the judge rather than Chase the politician — exactly the gap on a shelf full of political biographies. Hyman builds it around the two poles of Chase's chief justiceship: freeing Elizabeth Turner under the Thirteenth Amendment on circuit, and declaring the Union indestructible in Texas v. White. University Press of Kansas.
The Reading Path
A researched route through the literature — in order.
- 1.Stahr — for the readable modern life, Cincinnati to the center chair
- 2.Niven — for the definitive political biography
- 3.Texas v. White — for his great opinion and the constitutional end of secession
- 4.Stewart's Impeached — for the impeachment trial he presided over
- 5.Hyman, The Reconstruction Justice — for the case that Chase was a serious Chief Justice, not a failed one
Where the Papers Are Kept
Chase's manuscripts are principally at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, with major holdings at the Library of Congress and the Cincinnati History Library. Nearly all the essential diaries and correspondence are gathered in John Niven's five-volume edition, The Salmon P. Chase Papers (Kent State, 1993–1998) — the documentary base of every modern biography. Visit →
Online Resources
Ideas for Further Research
- The largest career ever to reach the center chair — and the most relentless ambition. Chase was the antislavery bar's 'attorney general for fugitive slaves,' a Free Soil senator, governor of Ohio, and the Treasury secretary who built the national banking system and the greenback (and put his own face on the dollar) before Lincoln named him Chief Justice in 1864. He wanted the presidency his whole life — challenged Lincoln for it, angled for the Democratic nomination in 1868 while sitting as Chief Justice, and reached again in 1872. Closes the Lincoln five (Swayne §35 → Miller §36 → Davis §37 → Field §38 → Chase).
- The greenback irony. As Treasury secretary Chase issued the paper 'greenbacks' that financed the Union; as Chief Justice, in Hepburn v. Griswold (1870), he wrote the opinion holding them unconstitutional as legal tender for pre-existing debts — striking down his own creation. Grant promptly filled two vacancies (Strong and Bradley), and the new majority reversed Chase in the Legal Tender Cases (1871), one of the rawest court-packing episodes in the Court's history. Field §38 dissented from the reversal (with Chase); Miller §36 was for the greenbacks — the cohort split.
- Two monuments, one term apart — and an office never won. Texas v. White (1869) gave the Union its legal charter, and in 1868 Chase presided over the Senate impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, the one constitutional duty assigned to the Chief Justice alone, insisting on judicial forms in a nakedly political proceeding that acquitted by a single vote. He died in office in 1873 (one of the 51 — see the Died in Office list), never having reached the presidency he most wanted.