Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/188

 The

Vol. XIV.

No. 4.

Green

BOSTON.

Bag.

Apr1l, 1902.

SALMON By Francis PORTLAND R. Jones.CHASE.

THERE is one glory of the sun, and an other glory of the moon, and an other glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory." And surely Mr. Chief Justice Chase differed vastly from his predecessors in office. A child of New England, a foster son of the new and golden West, he was a new type of Chief Justice. It may as well be said at once that he was not a better type. He was what was unanalytically and patrioti cally called a true American. If that term means a devotion to country and a greater devotion to self, a breezy self-centeredness and an elbowing, pushing ambition, then it must be conceded that it was rightly ap plied to him. His ambition obscured his view of the just relations in which his posi tions placed him. He seemed to have .1 strange disregard for the dignity of those positions, and an overweening sense of his own personal importance. He represented a new era in our politics. His accession to the Chief Justiceship marked a distinct deg radation in the attributes and attainments previously considered requisite for that high position. He was an arrogant man without the saving sense of humor. He had an inflated conception of his own abili ties. He was insistent upon the adoption by others of his own ideas and policies. He was always to the very end of his life an aspiring politician, whose great virtues of spotless integrity and unswerving adher ence to the principle of freedom for the slave alone palliate his later rather devious

political career. Again and again he sought the Presidency in vain. Yet he was a man of great parts, of great decision and firmness, of intense, unyielding industry, of tremendous persistence in accomplishing the work he had in hand. He was no time server or opportunist or trimmer, but a res olute man of action. He sought to com pel events. His courage was almost truculent, although untinged by cowardice. His executive ability was remarkable, and his genius for organization unrivalled. His intellect was clear and his reasoning powers sound, although not quick or brilliant. His life was austere and his principles puritani cal. His was a character which inspired rather admiration than friendship. Singlehanded, by the very force of his personality, he accomplished great things and the nation owes him a deep debt of gratitude. Ohio was admitted to the glorious com pany of the States in 1802. Then began, at first feebly, but with ever-increasing strength and grandeur the development of the great West. With ever-accelerating pace the western country grew until it became the centre of population and of political import ance. But long before it reached that proud position it was a force that had to be reckoned with, an element that had to be considered, and, if need were, conciliated. With only the Ohio River, a tie to bind it to and not a barrier to separate it from slaveholding Kentucky, with many of its in habitants emigrants from slave States, the slavery question early became of interest