Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/613

CHASE. in Philadelphia until 1S71. when he beeanio pro- fessor of logie and philosophy in Haverford Col- lege. He investigated many problems in physics and celestial mechanics, and was the author of Elemoits of Meteorology (1S84). For an in- vestigation on gravity he received the Magellanic gold medal of the American Philosophical So- ciety, in 1804. and was a vice-president of thig organization, as well as a member of many scien- tific societies, both European and American.

CHASE. (1808-73). An American statesman. He was born in Cornish, N. H.. January 13, 1808, and was a nephew of Bisliop Chase, who supervised his earlier edu- cation in Ohio. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1826, opened a school for boys in Washington, D. C, where he studied law under William Wirt: was admitted to the bar in 1830, and began to practice in Ohio, where almost his earliest work was the preparation of an edition of the statutes of Ohio with annotations, and a sketch of the history of the State. This work assisted him in gaining practice, and in 1834 he was appointed solicitor in Cincinnati for the Bank of the United States. His first etfort in a cause touching slavery was in defense (1837) of a colored woman claimed as a fugitive, and of James G. Birncy (q.v. ) for harboring her. This was the celebrated Matilda case. He maintained that the Fugitive Slave Law (q.v.) of. 1793 was void, because unwarranted by the Federal Constitution, and argued that slavery was a local institution; and that, as the slave had been brought into a free State by her mas- ter, she was in fact free. In 1847, in the Van Zandt ease, before the United States Supreme Court, he took the ground that under the Ordi- nance of 1787 (q.v.) no fugitive from service could be reclaimed from Ohio imless he had escaped from one of the original thirteen States; that it was the understanding of the framers of the Constitution that slavery was to be left to the disposal of the several States, without sanction or support from the Federal Government; and that the clause in the Constitution relating to persons held to service was a compact between the States, conferring no power of legislation on Congress and never being intended to confer such power. Chase also took part in many other cases involving the constitutionality of the Fugi- tive Slave Law and came to bo known among the slave-holders of Kentucky as the 'attorney- general of fugitive slaves.' Being in active cor- respondence with editors, clergj'men, and poli- ticians engaged in the anti-slavery movement, he soon became a recognized leader of the cause in Ohio. Although favoring the abolition of slavery, he differed radically from Garrison both as to methods of effecting that end and as to the relation of such movements to the existing law of the land. He voted for Harrison in 1840; but after the death of the President, when it became clearly apparent that the Whig Party could never be made a party of freedom, 'he withdrew from it in 1841, and was thereafter prominent as a member of the Lilieral Party in Ohio, which he helped to organize. He took liart in the National Liberty Convention in Buf- falo in 1S43, and subsequent conventions, until the nomination by the Free-Soilers (in 1848) of Martin Van Buren for President; was a leading member, and in most cases directed the proceedings. He was frequently called upon to prepare formal addresses and platforms for his l)arty, and, in particular, was the author of the Liberty Platform of 1843, the Liberty Address of 1845, the resolutions of the People's Conven- tion of 1847, and the Free Soil Platform of 1848. In February, 1840, he was chosen United States Senator from Ohio, his vote coming from all the Democrats and from a few of the Free Soil members. In the Senate he was an out- spoken opponent of slavery- extension, and he refused to accept Clay's compromise measures in 1850. Though imder obligations to no one party for his election, he usually acted with the Democrats, until the nomination, in 1852, of Pierce on a strongly pro-slavery platform, when he withdrew and undertook the formation of au independent Democratic Party.

Remaining in the Senate entirely independent of party relations, he became, even at the side of Sumner and Seward, the leader in the opposi- tion to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill (q.v.), and, acting with Giddings and Sumner, he sent out the historic "Appeal of the Independent Demo- crats." In 1855 the 'anti-Xebraska' elements in Ohio fixed upon him as their candidate for G!ov- ernor. and, after a vigorous and close contest, he defeated the candidate of the Old Democrats, and brought Ohio into line as a probable Repub- lican State in the campaign of I85G. In that year Chase was put forward as a candidate for the Eepublican nomination for the Presidency, but he withdrew his name. In 1857 he was re- elected Governor of Ohio, and became recognized thenceforth as a leader in the new national party. During his service as Governor he was much occu- pied w'ith matters connected with the slavery problem, and at the expiration of his term he was (in February, 1860) elected again to the Senate for the terra beginning IMarch 4. 1861. He was one of the candidates for the Republican nomination for the Presidency in 1860, and, fail- ing to secure it, he was later appointed by Lin- coln Secretary of the Treasury. In that oflice, which he hold until June, 1864, when he resigned owing to differences between himself and Presi- dent Lincoln, Chase rendered important public service. The maintenance of national credit and the supply of funds with which to prosecute the war, the provision and regulation of a currency system, the creation of a national banking system, and the administration of a national finance under conditions never before experienced or anticipated, mark these years as the most im- jiortant in the history of the department, and distinguish Chase as one of the great Secretaries of the Treasury.

In the autumn of 1864 Chief Justice Taney died, and Chase was appointed as his successor in December of that year, retaining the office through a period in which were lianded down a scries of decisions second in importance only to those of Marshall. Chase dissented from "the court's decision in the Milligan Case and in the so-called Slaughter- House Cases; he wrote the decision in Hepburn vs. Griswold. which held that the Legal-Tender Act, so far as it compelled the acceptance of paper money in pavment of debts antedating the statute which provided for such money, was unconstitutional. The effect of this was naturally to disprove an important part of Chase's work as Secretary of the Treasury; and this decision against his own work was soon afterwards, in the Legal-Tender Cases, re-