Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/349

 316

in the library to enjoy the society of this fascinating woman. He was thinking seri ously of making a fourth matrimonial ven ture, but his daughter, Mrs. Sprague, persuaded him to abandon the idea, telling him that it would injure his high political aspirations. Speaking of this last love-affair of Mr. Chase recalls a circumstance con nected with his first love. When holding the United States Circuit Court in Rich mond, in the spring of 1869, another Elizabeth Cabell, the niece of his first love, called to see the Chief Justice and Miss Chase; in alluding to his former sweetheart, his voice trembled, and he was evidently much moved by the tender recollections of the romantic episode of his youth. Chief-Justice Chase was received with great cordiality in the South, during this trip. Wherever he went, and in whatever company, he appeared as the advocate of a restored Union. He was invited to dinners, receptions, etc. At Charleston, I counted the cards of forty-eight of the most promi nent gentlemen of the city who called to see him in one day. The Chief Justice was very much pleased with the attentions shown to him, and accepted all the invitations that he received. One of the most interest ing was a dinner given by Mr. Trenholm, in Charleston, at which Mr. Chase and Mr. Memminger sat side by side. The latter, it will be remembered, was the Confederate Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Chase had a very liberal and catholic mind; he respected the honest convictions of every man, whether in religion or politics. Although, when a young man, teaching school in Washington, his patrons were Clay, Wirt, and other leading Whigs, Sal mon P. Chase was always a Democrat in politics. He was an abolitionist, and the defender of abolitionists, when it required great moral courage even in the North to be the one and do the other. He began his public life as a member of the first antislavery convention that ever met in this

country, the Cincinnati Convention of 1845. He called the Free Territory Convention at Columbus, O., in 1848, which resulted in the National Anti-Slavery Convention at Buffalo, of the same year, which nominated Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams for President and Vice-President of the United States. On the 2 2d of Febru ary, 1849, Mr. Chase was elected United States senator from Ohio, as an anti-slavery candidate. When the Republican party absorbed all the anti-slavery elements of the country, and became a great national party, he went with it; but when slavery was finally abolished, and the Civil War was over, he resumed his original place in poli tics as a Democrat. I once heard him say : "I am a Democrat, by the grace of God, free and independent." Chief-Justice Chase has been accused of indulging a presidential ambition. This is a noble ambition when a man is worthy of that high honor, and surely Salmon P. Chase would have graced that illustrious position. It would have properly crowned an exalted public life; but he never allowed his personal ambition to interfere with his public duties. When in Charleston, in 1869, he was invited to be present at the decoration of the Federal graves. His duties in court would not permit him to be present, but he sent a letter, in which he expressed the hope that, in the near future, both the North and the South, having for ever buried and forgotten the unhappy dif ferences of the past, would decorate, alike, the graves of both Federal and Confederate dead. The sentiment expressed in this letter attracted wide attention, and was at tributed by some persons to a bid for the presidency. A prominent New York bank er was so much shocked by the words of the Chief Justice that he wrote to him, ac cusing him of being actuated by an am bition for the presidency in expressing such views. In reply, Mr. Chase said : "I never was so ambitious as some un