Abstract

Lives of Chief-Justice Chase

It has been frequently observed among those who were interested in the war for the suppression of the rebellion, that the actual time elapsed since the year 1865 measures very poorly the immense gulf which seems separate from the end of the war. No doubt the chief reason for this is the number of important social and political events which have occurred in the last ten years, and among these changes none are more significant than the complete substitution in all the more prominent public stations of one set of men for another. During the life of Salmon Chase, chief justice of the U.S., views widely different were taken of his character and aims, to some persons he appeared as a cold, ambitious, selfish man, bent on obtaining power for himself at whatever cost, and using the great issues in which he became involved for this object.