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ADDRESS 
 
 MUSIC HALL, CINOITsrjSTATI, OHIO, 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF THE REMOVAL OF THE REMAINS OF 
 
 SALMON P, CHASE 
 
 SPRINO OROVE CEMETERY, 
 
 Thursday, Oclober 14, 1886, 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE IIOADLY. 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 EOBEET CLAEKE & CO. 
 
 1887. 
 

ADDRESS. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 We to-day lay to rest the earthly casket in -which found ex- 
 pression and took form the high thoughts and loving emotions 
 of one who was very dear to us, of the patriot, philanthropist, 
 statesman, and magistrate, whose memory the American people 
 Avill never suffer to fade. We shall place him beneath the 
 soil of the beautiful cemetery of Spring Grove, whose early 
 friend and zealous defender, in the halls of justice, he was ; 
 within sound of the turmoil and sight of the smoke of the great 
 city in Avliich he never relinquished legal residence, and never 
 abandoned the right to vote, in whose municipal legislature he 
 bestowed valued service in days when civic duty was held in 
 higher esteem than now; within the State which four times se- 
 lected him for exalted service, twice as Governor and twice as 
 Senator. 
 
 The wish of those whose will is law here assigns to me the 
 office of speech. This can not be declined. The honor is 
 great, the gratification extreme, to be permitted to express 
 the grateful sense of obligation felt by his younger friends, 
 by those of us ayIio 
 
 " Loved him so, followed him, honored hito, 
 Lived in his mild and mngnificent e}-e, 
 Learned his <:reat lan;iuaj;o, cau^iht iiis clear accenlp, 
 ' Made liim our pattern to live and to die." 
 
 But I can not do the work of the historian or the critic. I 
 must speak, if at all, of one who was my preceptor, master. 
 
partner, friend, only in words of sorrow, or of eulogy, as his 
 loving disciple. 
 
 Sixty years ago Salmon P. Chase left Dartmouth College, 
 and, after a brief interval spent at Washington in teaching and 
 in the study of tlie law, came to Cincinnati to seek a home. 
 He essayed to found a family, he sought happiness in matri- 
 mony, but it was ordained by higher powers that this should 
 not be lastina;. Two dauo;hters alone remained to be the 
 solace and the care of his Avidowed life. Thenceforward he 
 must look for pleasure to his duty. To its performance few 
 men have brought richer endowments of preparation. 
 
 Deeply-seated religious convictions, much study of the 
 sacred books in more than one language, Avith a quick con- 
 science, made him a Christian. A scholar carefully trained, 
 loving scholarship for its own sake as well as for its uses, a 
 skilled lawyer, not only learned in tlie books of legal princi- 
 ples, familiar Avith the reports of precedents, conversant with 
 the written legislation and public history of his State, the edi- 
 tor of its laAvs and recorder of its annals, he was also an 
 active practitioner, diligent in the courts as well as in the 
 library, the associate of men as Avell as of books, rich in re- 
 sources, ready for action, an adept in all the honorable meth- 
 ods Avhich lead to professional success. 
 
 Tall, dignified, of commanding presence, benign in expres- 
 sion, gentle in speech, sweet voiced, thinking kindly and 
 never speaking harshly of men or motives, manly in seeming 
 and in fact, brave, truthful and just in Avord and Avork, Avin- 
 ning in manners, this man seemed called by nature to great 
 personal popularity. And this indeed he enjoyed in early and 
 later life, but for many intervening years failed to hold. When, 
 forty years ago, I entered his ofiice as student of the laAV, he 
 was the most unpopular man in Cincinnati. True, his domes- 
 tic sorrows had made him grave and reserved — had AvithdraAvn 
 
him for the time from social intercourse and pleasures. This 
 does not account for his isolation. He was a candidate that 
 autumn for Congress, but received only five hundred votes. 
 Cincinnati, which had welcomed him at first with open arms, 
 petted and praised him, encouraged the brilliant young lawyer, 
 conferred on him civic honors, brought work to his office, 
 trusting business to his willing and eager care, now averted 
 her face, having become an angry stepmother. 
 
 Nine years later, after he had served a term in the Senate, 
 at the election of 1855, Avhen he was chosen Governor by 
 15,000 majority in the State, the first candidate of a new party, 
 a full-blooded, zealous, intensely hopeful party, he was, in his 
 own home, where he had then lived for twenty-five years, not 
 first, nor even second in the list, beaten by the Democrat, 
 Medill, by 10,000, by the Know Nothing, or American, Trim- 
 ble, 2,000, his name came from the ballot-boxes of Hamilton 
 county with a beggarly tale of 4,500 votes. A single sentence 
 explains the mystery : He Avas an Abolitionist, and Cincin- 
 nati a suburb of the South. Without railroad connections, 
 removed by bad roads and long distances from the North, 
 seated upon a river which gave free access and easy com- 
 merce with all the South, the intellectual life of this city Avas 
 long dominated by the slaveholding caste. For its favor, in 
 espousal of its threatened interests, presses Avere destroyed 
 and free negroes mobbed. Politically the voters Avere divided 
 into tAvo classes — Democrats, avIio felt bound, in conscience 
 and in laAV, by the iron chains of constitutional compromise, 
 and worshipers of Henry Clay. Yes, the Avord is not too 
 strong to describe the devotion of the Whio;s of Cincinnati to 
 their chief: — Avorshipers of Henry Clay — such of them as dis- 
 liked slavery, of whom there Avere many, fearful, anxious that 
 this should not be so manifested as to hurt their party or its 
 leader. 
 
6 
 
 And Chase was no recluse, no book-worm, no merely philo- 
 sophic, speculative Abolitionist, He was an active, aggressive 
 politician. He believed in work and in methods ; believed in 
 parties, committees, machinery, organization, in newspapers, 
 speeches, letters, persuasion ; in short, in every species of 
 ao-itation. He was no apostle of non-resistance or submis- 
 sion, but a propagandist of political war. To Avork within the 
 Constitution Avas to him a duty and a pleasure. He believed 
 in the Union and in tlie Constitution — the one was not to him 
 a "leao-ue with hell," nor the other a '"covenant with deatli." 
 They were the legal frame-work of a free Republican system, 
 under whose ;\?gis might, ought, and in time Avould and must 
 dwell none but free people. 
 
 For he saw, with prophetic vision, that slavery must expand 
 or die ; that it could live profitably only on virgin soil, and 
 that he who should succeed in arresting its territorial exten- 
 sion would be its destroyer. This task, I Ijelieve, he was am- 
 bitious and hopeful enough to assign to himself; this glory I 
 know he coveted. The dream of his earlier political life and 
 the spur of his incessant effort, until the Avar opened the Avay 
 to a more speedy, a sharper and more effectual traverse to the 
 o-reat end, Avere the hope of the abolition of slavery, not by 
 direct emancipatory vote or step, Avhich seemed then impossi- 
 ble, but by the check of its growth, and consequent decay and 
 
 death. 
 
 For Chase Avas a lawyer, and in the Constitution he read the 
 charter of freedom. No judge of later days, helping Virginia 
 to scale her debt by the processes of the Riddleberger bill, 
 more vigorously accentuated, emphasized Avith more bold un- 
 derscorino-, the relation of the amendments to the Constitution 
 itself. They Avere to him the " hitherto shalt thou come and 
 no further, and here shall thy proud Avaves be stayed " of pop- 
 ular mandate ; the impenetrable wall, the protecting mountain 
 
no hostile foot could ever pass, set to guard the sacred asylum 
 of liberty. Whatever might have been argued of the body 
 of the Constitution, to his mind it was clear that the Jeffer- 
 sonian amendments were the supreme and righteous law of the 
 land, binding the conscience of every citizen, in the interest 
 of liberty, as the latest and therefore most authoritative fiat of 
 the governing power. 
 
 And ot these amendments that which more than any other, 
 (if this may be said), claimed his allegiance and evoked his en- 
 thusiastic energy, to him the corner-stone of American law 
 and liberty, was the tenth : 
 
 '' The poAvers not delegated the United States by the Con- 
 stitution nor proliil)ited by it to the States are reserved to the 
 States respectively or to the people." 
 
 TTad he lived lono;er his views of Congress over the cur- 
 rency might not have prevailed, in the courts ; doubtless they 
 would not, as soon as this. Before he died, his oAvn clear judg- 
 ment of the incapacity of Congress to make any thing but 
 gold and silver legal tender had been overruled by the maior- 
 ity of his judicial associates ; but with Chase a just battle, 
 however adversely its tides might run, was never fought out 
 until the attainment of the right result. One thing is certain, 
 had he lived, he would have met Avith indignant protest, founded 
 on the very letter of the tenth amendment, the modern heresy 
 that the Federal Government may exercise poAvers not Avrit- 
 ten, not siranted, not suggested in the Constitution other than 
 as they may be deduced by judicial philosophers from the fact 
 that tlic Constitution creates a government, and be supposed 
 by fcAV. or many to be essential to it as a government, though 
 not granted or derived by necessary implication from granted 
 poAvers. 
 
 This amendment made him a States' Rights man, a strict 
 constructionist, but ahvays a strict constructionist in the in- 
 
8 
 
 terests of liberty. Another Senator from Ohio was once de- 
 scribed as having the quickest eye in the United States to 
 see that there was no seal on the mittimus which committed 
 his client to jail. Of Chase, it might as truthfully be said 
 that he would 1)e tlie first to find any infringement of the 
 essential princi})les of American liberty and the equal rights 
 of man in the imprisonment of a client. To him the right to 
 govern the District of Columbia and the Territories seemed to 
 have been given in terms to Congress — but the declared ob- 
 jects of the Constitution being to " establisli justice, 
 promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of lib- 
 erty to ourselves and our posterity " — and the right to intro- 
 duce slavery not given — slavery could not lawfully exist in 
 the District,* nor claim the benefits of territorial expansion. I 
 do not deny that this construction was agreeable to Mr. Chase. 
 It reconciled the sense of his duty as a citizen to take a stir- 
 ring part in public affairs with his conscience. Over the door 
 of his mind as well as of his heart was written the legend, 
 J^iJiil humanum mihi alienum j^uto. 
 
 This, then, became the problem of his political life : how to 
 gain the assent of the majority to keep slavery within existing 
 limits. To this end he resorted to political methods. Here 
 he differed from Garrison and Phillips. All honor to them 
 that they quickened the conscience and enlarged the moral 
 
 *NoTE. — I am permitted to publish the following passnge of a let- 
 ter recently received from Hon. Richard Mott, of Toledo, Ohio: 
 
 " It was in 1829 or 1830, while he was teaching school in Washing- 
 ton, that he began the crusade to " denationalize" slavery by its abol- 
 ishment in the District of Columbia. Petitions from his pen to that 
 end were printed and circulated largely through the Northern States, 
 wherever parties could be found to obtain signatures, at which among 
 others I was diligently engaged, then living in the city of New York. 
 Nearly thirty years afterwards a printer in Washington who set up the 
 types told me of the authorship." 
 
sense of the people, helping thus to recruit the army of work- 
 ers led by Chase, and Seward, and Sumner. But Garrison 
 and Phillips neither scared nor hurt the South ; they only en- 
 raged it. They lived to see the Union they detested, and the 
 Constitution they abhorred, saved by the methods they had de- 
 nounced as immoral. No, the real glory of emancipation be- 
 longs to others, to the Frcesoilers, as they preferred to call 
 themselves ; the causa eausans was political Abolitionism. 
 Chase, too, lived till the crisis had passed and the land was 
 free ; not compelled to retrace a step or retract an opinion ; 
 freed by political methods, by party action, by the election of 
 Abraham Lincoln, Avhich, by threatening to stay the extension 
 of slavery, drove it to arms, and made possible its eradication 
 by tlie triumphs of war, consummated in written law by the 
 adoption of the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment, 
 
 So, too, Chase founded on the Tenth Amendment his denial of 
 the constitutionality of the fugitive slave laws of 1793 and 1850. 
 In borrowing, from the articles of confederation, the clause 
 giving to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of 
 each State full faith and credit in every other, the framers of the 
 Constitution had thought it necessary to add a provision confer- 
 ring upon the Congress express pow'er to enforce this by gen- 
 eral laws. They had also borrowed, from the same source, the 
 article relating to fugitives from justice, but omitted to grant 
 legislative power for its enforcement. They had adopted a 
 like provision for the return of fugitives from servitude, and 
 here again failed to add a grant of legislative powder. And, 
 in each of these, the duty was imposed, not upon federal, but 
 upon state agencies only. Therefore, argued the future Chief- 
 Justice, these clauses confer treaty powers only, establish re- 
 lations of compact, depending for their sanction upon the acts 
 of the States, and do not warrant federal interference. 
 
 These views he emphasized by applying the proposition of 
 
10 
 
 ' Mr. Calhoun, which, after all, is mere historical fact, that the 
 Constitution ^vas made by States — proposed by States, ratified 
 by States — taking effect, it is true, upon people as avcII as 
 States, creating " an indcstructiljle union of indestructible 
 States," and to that end, as well as for the promotion of the 
 benign purposes enunciated in the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence and the pream])lc to the Constitution, establishing a nation 
 and a govei-niucnt, but a government of defined powers, within 
 close limitations, all other and non-stated powers being re- 
 served to the States, the autliors of the Constitution, and to 
 their people. Among these granted powers, he found none"to 
 justify Congress in extending slavery beyond, or interfering 
 with it Avithin the States, or enabling Congress to dictate to 
 the States how they should obey the mandate for the return 
 of fugitives from slavery. 
 
 And, again, if defeated in this, he was ready, following his 
 favorite thought that interpretation and construction must be 
 for liberty, to fall back upon the Seventh Amendment and the 
 principles of the common law, and to insist that the right of 
 ti-ial l)y jury could not be witlidrawn from any man, black or 
 white, to the control of whose person another man might as- 
 sert superior title. 
 
 And in maintaining the sovereign reserved power of Ohio 
 over the statm of all dwellers or sojourners upon her soil, he 
 claimed for his beloved State the same high dignity Lord 
 Mansfield asserted for Great Britain. Here, too, when the 
 slave touches free soil, when a steixmer carrying slave freight 
 lands at an Ohio wharf, the shackles fall, the man is free. 
 
 These were the lines of political thought in which the active 
 life of Salmon P. Chase was cast. To secure their predomi- 
 nance was the task set upon him ; to maintain their justice 
 had been given him from above the ten talents of his large 
 mental powers and moral forces ; to return these at the end 
 
11 
 
 with others added, with this work consummated, Avas the su- 
 preme effort of his days. For this he bore obloquy, and passed 
 many years of darkness. By this, — Oh ! thank God ! for a na- 
 tion delivered, a race emancipated, a Union restored, — by this, 
 he came at last to days of mercy and of light and of well- 
 earned honor. 
 
 To maintain these views he devoted pen, voice, life, without 
 fee or reward. His legal services were freely bestowed in the 
 protection of every fugitive slave and the defense of his friends. 
 He Avas a walking arsenal of the law of liberty. What he 
 could not do with the writ of habeas corpus no man might ac- 
 complish. His weapons were ever ready for instant serv- 
 ice. They required no burnishing, no loading ; with or with- 
 out time for preparation, they were always at hand for use. 
 This office he never refused ; this duty he never neglected. 
 
 And this in a town which had destroyed James G. Birney's 
 press, and mobbed and maltreated negroes because they Avere 
 free ; in a State where, from 1806 until 1849, no black or 
 mulatto could bear competent witness in any court against a 
 white, in which the visible admixture of color had come to be 
 considered a moral and social taint, so that an infusion of 
 black blood Avas treated by statute laAV as a dangerous disease, 
 and those so infected Avere not permitted to vote, or if they came 
 Avithin the description " black or mulatto," might not hiAvfully 
 dAvell for more than tAventy days Avithout giving bond, Avith 
 freehold security, for their support. 
 
 In this community this man, young in years, but Avith ^ sage 
 counsels old," Avith the aid of tAvo great men (Samuel LcAvis 
 and Gamaliel Bailey),^' supported by but fcAV associates, and 
 
 * XoTE. — Perhaps the name of James G. Bu-iiey should have been 
 added here. I never saw him, and do not know whether his men- 
 tal gifts corresponded to liis great moral force. His accomplished 
 son, General William Birney, is, I am told, about to publish his 
 
12 
 
 they in the main obscure persons, started a political party to 
 check the growth of slavery. This, too, Avhen their future 
 allies were yet grinding in tlie bondage of Whig or Demo- 
 cratic servitude, when Hale was still a New Hampshire Demo- 
 crat of the school of Isaac Hill, Seward, the Whig Gov- 
 ernor of New York, Greeley, the Whig editor, and Sum- 
 ner, a young lawyer, more busied in editing Judge Story's 
 decisions upon the circuit than in the great cause to which he 
 afterward gave health and life. Yes, started a political party 
 to check the growtli of slavery, an institution two hundred 
 years old in this country ; to curb the pride and th^vart the 
 supposed interests of great States and peoples ; to arrest the 
 development of the domestic institutions of fifteen sovereign 
 Commonwealths, with the conscious purpose, the avowed hope, 
 of ultimately revolutionizing them. Audacious attempt ! It 
 seemed the revolt of pigmies against giants, Lilliput in war 
 AvithBrobdingnag, a rebellion against law and order and nature, 
 an attempt, safe only because insignificant, to alter the courses 
 of the stars. Received at first with derision : " Ha! ha ! the 
 silly fools," said public opinion ; " cranks '' they would have 
 been called, had the vocabulary of to-day been then in vogue ; 
 then met with anger and violence. " I am not mad, most 
 noble Festus," Chase might have replied, " but speak forth the 
 words of truth and soberness." No, they Avere not mad nor 
 bad. History, sitting calm and serene upon the throne of 
 judgment, has already spoken. These men Avere in the right — 
 principles and methods alike right. Their appeal Avas to 
 reason ; it Avas met with war. These men Avere in the right, 
 and nobly so. They were of the kindred of the gods ; — 
 made in the image of their divine Creator ; — filled with the 
 
 life, and thus will be soon corrected any error I may have made in 
 this omission. He is certainly entitled to the credit of having seen 
 the necessity of independent political action sooner than any man in 
 the United States. 
 
13 
 
 spirit of their divine lineage ; —their madness has become and 
 is to-day hxw, the fountain and source of untold blessino-g; 
 has brought liberty to the slave, chastity to his family, happi- 
 ness and new life to the homes of master and servant alike. 
 
 For liberty is making a new North and a new South, alien- 
 ated no longer, working together in love. Time may be 
 required for the full realization of its bounteous gifts, but 
 already and before the close of the first quarter century since 
 the end of the war, we see not the faint glimmerings of dawn, 
 but the full promise of morning, ushering in the meridian 
 splendor of the day of jubilee. 
 
 I have said that Mr. Chase could not convince himself of 
 the existence of any legal power given by the Constitution to 
 abolish slavery. This led in 1850 to a distinct change in his 
 political relations. Beginning life as a Whigj-i" rather as the 
 result of early teaching and personal associations than other- 
 wise, for he was never friendly to Mr. Clay's doctrine of 
 protection, he had gradually entered into sympathy with the 
 social ideas which underlie the political philosophy of the 
 Democratic party, and upon all points except those relating to 
 slavery, and chiefly because of his views of the equality of 
 man, was, when I first knew him, quite in accord Avith the 
 political principles of Thomas Jefferson and his successors, 
 the Democratic statesmen of that day. Slavery alone divided 
 
 * Note. — The Whigs of Cincinnati used to reproach Mr. Chase for 
 leaving tlieii- party, assigning as a reason that he had been disappointed 
 in liis political aspirations. I learn from Hon. Rufus King, who was 
 then a law student in his office, that Mr. Chase was a candidate for the 
 Whig nomination for State Senator, and was defeated in the nominat- 
 ing convention, principally at the instigation of his brother-in-law, H. 
 H. Southgate, upon the avowed and open ground that he was an Abo- 
 litionist. II ow notice could have been more distinctly given to Chase 
 that there was no place in the W'hig pai'ty of Ohio, for him or his prin- 
 ciples, 1 fail to see. 
 
14 
 
 tlicm. A gulf wide enough, indeed. In tliis faith thereafter 
 he lived — in this faith he died. To him the liherty of the 
 individual was the one thing politically needful ; all else was 
 to keep the peace and leave mankind to free self-development, 
 without governmental interference, whose fostering attempts 
 he considered more likely to obstruct than to forward liuinan 
 progress. This course of thought made it easy f(»r him to 
 favor the alliance made at Buffalo, in 1848, with Mr. Tilden and 
 General Dix, to support the candidacy of Mr. Van Buren for 
 the Presidency, and to accept his own election to the Senate 
 by Democratic votes in 1840. But, in 1850, the Liberty party 
 of Ohio nominated the Rev. Edward Smith for Governoi- upon 
 a platform espousing the theory of Congressional power to 
 abolish slavery within the States. Mr. Chase was not present 
 at the convention, but he gave his warm approval to his young 
 partner, who, in his name, had denounced the platform upon 
 the spot. This platform was a ncAv departure, antagonizing Mr. 
 Chase's most settled convictions of the limits set by the Con- 
 stitution to the powers of Congress, dangerous because involv- 
 ing a latitudinarianism likely in the then temper of the public 
 mind to result in aggressions upon liberty rather than to forward 
 the cause of emancipation. It led to his open affiliation, for a 
 time, Avith the Democratic party of Ohio, whose platform had 
 for years contained a pledge of active effort to mitigate the 
 evils of slavery, arrest its spread, and, as far as the Constitu- 
 tion might permit, assist in its eradication. 
 
 What factor determined this course of life? What ele- 
 ment of character sustained this young man in his advance 
 movement, apparently so hopeless, certainly so far beyond 
 current thought ? What kept him in hope and stimulated his 
 energies in the face of political and even social isolation, of 
 the loss of the good-Avill of neighbors, of probable exile 
 from fortune and the gratification of his high ambition? He 
 
15 
 
 could not foresee his gi-eat future. What made him content 
 to be the best hated man in Cincinnati, to bear opprobrium, 
 to stand (as he once did) by the side of General Thomas Kilby 
 Smith, and meet volleys of stale eggs, while he calmly con- 
 tinned his plea for justice to the slave ? He was not helped 
 in his work by malice, or hatred, or spite, the stimulus of little 
 and mean men. When I made his acquaintance, his most in- 
 timate friend was a Kentucky slave-owner.* He made war on 
 the system, not the men, knowing full well that any life, his 
 own even, caught Avithin the folds of slavery, must submit to 
 the crushing of its free thought, and its errors be largely, if 
 not Avholly, excused by the impossibility of escaping the con- 
 trol of circumstance, education, interests, surroundino-s. 
 
 Wliat helped him, yes, made him, was this : He walked with 
 God. The predominant element in his life, that whicdi o-ave 
 tone and color to his thoughts and determined the direction 
 of all he did, was striving after righteousness. I do not 
 refer to his theology, his theories of the Divine nature. He 
 could as easily work with a Unitarian, or Quaker, or free-tliinker 
 as with a member of his own cliurch. The ri^lit to free 
 thought upon the greatest of topics, which he claimed for him- 
 self, he conceded to all, ne\er even pressing his influence in 
 such matters upon the youngest and most immature of his 
 associates. He was alike the friend of Theodore Parker and 
 of Charles P. Mcllvaine. He was a communicant and at- 
 tached member of the Protestant Episcopal Cliui'ch, of which 
 his uncle, Philander, in whose family and under whose tutelage 
 he passed part of his boyhood a£ Worthington, in Ohio, Avas 
 not only a bishop, but a strong bishop. But I refer to the 
 personal relations he believed himself to occupy toward the 
 Divine powei-. 
 
 To him God was not a name, but a living personal presence; 
 
 *'XoTK. — The late Hamilton Smith, of Louisville. 
 
16 
 
 not the author of a machine set in motion and then abandoned, 
 but his companion and guide, ready to draw near Avhen sought 
 in prayer, in meditation, in self-sacrifice, in good Avorks and 
 right life. His God was liis master, daily and hourly bidding 
 him be up and at Ilis work — trusting to him talents and oppor- 
 tunities, not for self-gratification, but for use in tlic Divine 
 warfare, the royal battle against temptation within and wrong 
 without. Behind the dusky face of every black man he saw 
 his Savior, the Divine man, also scourged, also a prisoner, at 
 last crucified. That is what made liim wliat lie was. 
 
 To this habit of referring to Divine guidance every act of his 
 life, public and private, we owe the closing words of the 
 proclamation of Emancipation, which Mr. Lincoln added from 
 Chase's pen : 
 
 ••'And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, 
 warranted by the constitution upon military necessity, I invoke 
 the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor 
 of Almighty God." 
 
 He had dainty tastes, disliked the unclean in word or person, 
 but he put his pleasure under his feet when duty led him to the 
 rescue of tlie lowly. He had a large frame and mighty pas- 
 sions, but they were under absolute control. Said one of his 
 political enemies : " I liate liim, but I can not anger him." 
 E. D. Mansfield, who, in behalf of the friends of Governor 
 Trimble, Avrote the fierce and unjust appeal of the third party 
 to the people against his election as Governor, in 1855, was 
 appointed by him Commissioner of Statistics. This was not 
 done to placate Mansfield. Chase was then successful, his 
 enemies discomfited ; but Mansfield was fit for the place be- 
 yond any other man in Ohio, and the call for his appointment 
 was obeyed, not as a private pleasure, but as a public duty. 
 
 Thus he was a man of poise ; not easily jostled from his 
 bearings, ready for disturbing events, and the last to show dis- 
 
17 
 
 composure or act with undue haste. I sat by liis side when 
 the west wing of his residence on tlie Lower River road fell to 
 the ground a mass of ruins. Not a nerve was agitated ; ap- 
 parently his pulse beat no liigher than the moment before. 
 He sat grave and imperturbable and calmly accepted the 
 loss. The shock Avas met with the composure of habitual 
 and complete self-control. In years of intimate intercourse 
 I never saw him lose tempei-. Yet in his veins ran not one 
 drop of cold blood. 
 
 Daughters and friends, how well we knoAv this ! His heat 
 was regulated, not wild and iinbalanced. Like that of the sun, 
 it was life-giving — manifested in love and sacrifice, not pas- 
 sion. 
 
 His greatest personal success was in winning the hearts of 
 the people, especially of the Whigs of Ohio. The events of 
 1849 had greatly disturbed them. From being the object of 
 local aversion, Mr. Chase had become the target for every ar- 
 row of hate and scorn in the Whig quiver. Plis election to 
 the Senate by a Legislature in which he had but two friends 
 (or, at the most, three*) in full political sympathy, they called 
 bargain and sale, and there are, perhaps, men still living who 
 believe Mr. Chase's connection Avitli that transaction to have 
 been personally dishonoring. But these are the few, the rare 
 exceptions. 
 
 I have personal knowledire that the most serious charere 
 against him was untrue, viz : That to gain the object of his 
 ambition he advocated the nullification of the law dividing this 
 county into two districts for the election of Representatives to 
 the General Assembly. I was then his clerk, m^^self in full 
 
 * NoTK. — I am authorizeil to say that it was then known to Mr. 
 Chase, Dr. Townsend and Colonel Morse, that Hon. A. G. Riddle, Rep- 
 resentative i'rom Geauga county, now of Washington City, would vote 
 -for-Mr. Chase on the next ballot. '• 
 
18 
 
 S3^mpfithy Avitli tlic proposed resistance to tliis division, and I 
 know that long before he fancied tliere was a ])ossibility that 
 the Free Soil party couhl secure tlie bahmce of power in the 
 General Assembly, liefore he had l)egun the speaking cam- 
 paign in the northern counties which secured that result, his 
 well settled opinion Avas, that under the Constitution of 1802 
 there could be no division of counties by legislative apportion- 
 ment. And more than one man now upon this platform knoAvs 
 how willino; he was that the niime of Joshua R. Giddiniis should 
 bo preferred to his own, if the Whigs Avould first come to the 
 terms dictated by Di-. Townsend and Colonel Morse. 
 
 But why delay to defend ti-ansactions u])on wliicdi the people 
 of Ohio have pronounced final judgment ? Every prominent 
 actor in those scenes received applause and rewards, not cen- 
 sure. Of the leaders in the coalition which repealed the black 
 laws and gave to Salmon P. Chase his first Senatorial commis- 
 sion, Dr. Norton S. Townsend was re-elected to the Lejiisla- 
 ture, elected to Congress, and now, in honored old age, fills a 
 high post of useful duty as the senior Professor in the Ohio 
 State University ; Colonel John F. Morse Avas re-elected to the 
 General Assembly, and nnide its Speaker ; George E. Pugh 
 likewise re-elected, was elected Attorney-General, made Mr. 
 Chase's successor in the Senate ; Alexander Lonji; also re- 
 elected, then sent to Congress ; — Stanley Matthews, Senator 
 and Judge, are you ashamed of the part — not small — you took 
 in the days of your yonth in a transaction Avhich constitutes 
 not the least, in my opinion, of the many titles to honor you 
 enjoy ? 
 
 At last the people of Ohio— yes, even the Whigs of Ohio — 
 and of this city and county, Avhose hearts were almost broken 
 Avhen Salmon P. Chase was first elected Senator, were Avon 
 over to the man. His second election as Governor, accomplished, 
 it is true, by only fifteen hundred plurality, was, nevertheless, 
 
19 
 
 a high triumph — not half so much over Henr}^ B. Payne and 
 the Democracy as Avithin the Republican party, which by 
 this time embraced nearly all his old antagnonists. In 1857 
 he led a solid column, and in January, 1860, by the consensus 
 of o])inion of the entire Republican party of Ohio, more than 
 half of whose members had been, eleven years before, his bitter 
 political, and many of whom supposed they were also his per- 
 sonal foes, he received his second commission as Senator. 
 There was no longer need of effort for his promotion. Press 
 and people of his party with one accord called him to the same 
 high public trust committed to him eleven years before with 
 so much turmoil and clamor and division of sentiment. The 
 same unanimity of approval attended Mr. Lincoln's designation 
 of Mr. Chase as Secretary of the Treasury in 1861. By 
 steadfastness he had won the prize he valued, the affection 
 of the people of Ohio — not Ity fawning and flattery, by none 
 of the arts of the demagogue, but by a virtuous life, and by 
 wise and faithful service, and undaunted and persistent advoc- 
 acy of a great cause. 
 
 That his place in the Treasury Department was no bed of 
 roses we all know. But he filled it. He was the power be- 
 hind the army, without whom its array would have dis- 
 solved. That dire necessity drove him to at least one expe- 
 dient he disapproved, Ave know from his own lips. But who 
 shall say that the use of the Nation's credit did not need the 
 succor of the legal tender provision. It continues until now. 
 Even now, in halcyon days of sunny peace, few and bold are 
 they who propose to cancel the legal tender notes or withdraw 
 their legal tender function. One thing may be said with as- 
 sured certainty, both of the legal tender and national bank 
 currency, devices to which he resorted; nearly twenty-five 
 years have passed, but wliatever may be claimed of their indi- 
 rect effect, no man has yet lost a dollar by their direct action, 
 
20 
 
 or by the failure of this paper to serve the purposes of a safe 
 currency. 
 
 In his judicial service he was most fortunate In this : that it 
 fell to the lot of the cmirt over Aviruli he ])resided, by decisions 
 which he pronounced, to restore peace to the South. The war 
 left a legacy of controversies to the ])eo})le of the Confederate 
 States, for the adjustment of -which was needed, not the acu- 
 men of the lawyer, but the wisdom of the jurist and states- 
 man. He who looks through the Alal)ama reports from the 
 48(1 to the 4()th volume will find three opinions, one from each 
 of the tlirce Judges of the reconstructed Supreme Court of that 
 State, as to the le<i;al Kfafus of legislation and iud<iments 
 during the rebellion. Chief-Justice Peck held that the judg- 
 ments of the State courts rendered during the war were like 
 those of foreign tribunals, pr/wa/ac/e valid, but open to dispute, 
 and creating no lien. Judge Peters hehl all legislative action 
 taken during the war absolutely void until re-enacted after 
 reconstruction, while -Judge Saffbld held the same valid, be- 
 cause the work of a de facto government. 
 
 For some years and until the decision of the cases of Texas 
 V. White, and TJiormgton v. Smith, at the December term, 
 18G8, of the Supreme Court of the United States, thei'c Avas 
 legal confusion at the South. All legislation was open to dis- 
 pute — the judgments of courts, the settlement of estates, the 
 transfers of land, payments of Confederate money, Avere in 
 controversy. One of the best law^yers in Alabama told me 
 that there Avas a time after the Avar Avhen even good laAvyers 
 Avere knoAvn to question the validity of marriages performed 
 under licenses from a court sitting by authority of a rel)el- , 
 lious State. This was the ninth plague, the plague of dark- 
 ness, Avith no light in the dwellings. The victorious North 
 had destroyed property, laid in Avaste cities and farms and 
 
21 
 
 railroads, emancipated slaves, handed over the reins of gov- 
 ernment to satraps and hirelings, said the South, and here Avas 
 a new and greater disaster than all else — the ancient land- 
 marks of right and law were removed and the reign of chaos 
 and night inaugurated. 
 
 Out of this wilderness of disorder and doubt, Chief-Justice 
 Chase and his judicial associates led our country and its 
 Southern peo})le, l)y the simple rule, authoritatively announced, 
 that no transaction, public or ])rivate, during the rebellion, was 
 invalid, unless it was either, first, in aid of the rebellion, or 
 secondly, in derogation of the just rights of some loyal and 
 adhering citizen. 
 
 Havel painted the portrait of a radicals By no means. 
 This man was no rash innovator, rushing in where angels fear 
 to tread. By disposition and education he was a conservative. 
 Ilis function Avas not that-of a destroyer, but a restorer. The 
 emancipation of the slave destroyed no property, Avasted no 
 substance, depopulated no cities, disturbed the peace of no 
 household. The slave disappeared, but the freeman remained. 
 The fictitious values represented by the power to place him 
 upon the auction block Avere blotted from the statistics of 
 property, but the same sums, and more, appeared among the 
 figures of the values of liberty. The wan Avas still there, 
 unchanged except in legal sfafuft and in the incentive to make 
 himself more valuable to the State and to his family as a free- 
 man. 
 
 The Abolitionists did not propose or make Avar. Slavery 
 fired on Sumter. Most of them Avould have gladly followed 
 England's example, and paid for emancipation. The country 
 thought differently once, but now it sees that the true conserva- 
 tives Avere Lincoln and Seward and Chase and Sumner, the 
 real radicals Yancey and Toombs and Mason and Davis. 
 
 The interest of Mr. Chase in the o<dored race did not cease 
 
22 
 
 ■with the Avar; it attended the l)lnck man and assisted his com- 
 plete enfranchisement. Ey his hist will, a relatively large 
 proportion of a small estate, the sum of ^10,000, Avas left to 
 Wilberforce University at Xenia, Ohio, for the education of 
 younii' men and Avomen of color. l>ut lie hesitated, took time, 
 Avas slow to come to the sujtport of the Fifteenth Amendment. 
 He Avas a conservative, and to introduce to the 1)allot-box a 
 race just emerged from chattel slavery and the darkness of 
 crass ignorance seemed to him, as a friend of the race, an ex- 
 periment of doiihtful result. He Avas a conservative, and 
 preferred the more taidy ])rocesses of State action, })referred 
 that this great change should take ]ilace after education had 
 prepared the men of color for the ballot, and by the consent of 
 the Southern Avhites. But he Avas no sentimentalist, and he kncAV 
 that suffrage Avas an ultinmte necessity if ])olitical caste and })er- 
 haps practical restoration to slavery Avere to l)e permanently 
 avoided. Once convinced tliat his favorite scheme of State 
 enfranchisement Avas impracticable, his doubts and hesitation 
 A'anished. The Ohio Jjcgislature had rejected the amendment ; 
 the people had refused to permit men of color in Ohio to vote. 
 At the annual election of 18(11), by one of those curious muta- 
 tions of public opinion. Avhich have been so common in this 
 county, a hybrid ticket, half Democrats, half Republicans, Avas 
 chosen to the Legislature, under the ])retcnce of reform, the 
 trace of the accomplishment of Avhich, I need not say, are at 
 this day but slight. But the Republican leaders of this move- 
 ment Avere Mr. Chase's friemls, and over them he had bound- 
 less influence. Upon the decision to be reached in Ohio 
 seemed to depend the result. Tavo gentlemen noAv here pres- 
 ent, Avho had not supported the successful ticket, visited Wash- 
 ington, one of them tAvice, to urge the- Chief-Justice to exert 
 his persuasive poAvers tOAvard procuring the adoption of the 
 Fifteenth Amendment. He deliberated, presented to them 
 
23 
 
 and to himself all sides and every view of the question. The 
 res])onsibilitY rested on him, f(n- his jjersonal friends, thus 
 chosen, held the power to adopt or defeat the ratification. At 
 last he saw the duty clearly and acted with vigor. The letters 
 addressed by him to Senator Thomas Henry Yeatman and Rep- 
 resentative George H. Hill, urging their support of the amend- 
 ment, which at his instance they gave, are still in existence. His 
 weight thrown into the balance was decisive. Tliere were then 
 thirty-seven States — twenty-five were needed — twenty-four had 
 voted affirmatively ; on January 27, 1870, Ohio, the twenty- 
 fifth State, ratified, and thus, through the personal persuasions 
 of Salmon P. Chase, exerted at the right moment and Avith the 
 right men, the consummation of emancipation was reached in 
 the enfranchisement of the slave. Thus were settled, in his 
 life-time, all questions of liberty ; thereafter economic discus- 
 sion, questions of tariff, taxation, revenue, expenditure, were 
 to be in order. In less than forty years the land that refused 
 to listen to the appeal for liberty had freed the slave and 
 placed the l^allot in his hands. Henceforward he must stand 
 for his own right, a freeman, no longer a ward, his destinies 
 within his own control. 
 
 Six great men in civil an<l military executive office led the 
 people of the United States to the destruction of the rebel- 
 lion, and the restoration of the Union — Lincoln, Seward, 
 Stanton, Chase, Grant, Slu'rman. Of these, four Avere natives 
 or citizens of Ohio. "Well may our Commonwealth take ])v\de 
 in the aidiievements of her sons. Yet in the Walhalla of the 
 nation she has passed over all these and chosen two others, 
 that imperishable marble may bear witness to her sense of 
 their services to her. And this is well. For Chase, Stanton, 
 (jrant, and Sherman belong not to Ohio, but to the nation, to 
 the world. At Spring Grove and other cemeteries costly 
 monuments attest the love of the livino; for the dead, or the 
 
24 
 
 ostentation of the living. The names they bear will in a score 
 or two of years be forgotten. Around the frieze of one of the 
 great halls in the Ducal Palace at Venice are inscribed the 
 names of forgotten chieftains, the A'euetiaii Doges, among 
 them few, indeed, whose fauu' has reached this gi'iieration, and 
 is known to citizen and stranger. Time covers with the kindly 
 moss of oblivion all traces of obscure mortals. But when the 
 name of Salmon Portland Chase shall be forgotten in the land 
 whose Union he did so much to restore, ;nid by the descend- 
 ants of those to wliom, master and servant alike, he secur('(l 
 the greatest of nil blessings, liberty, — Union and lilx-rty, laws 
 and lanofuajie will have nerisheil and tlie forest have i-esumed 
 its swav over the works of man. 
 
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