Biography

Salmon Portland Chase was born in New Hampshire, CT. As a young boy he spent three years in Ohio with his uncle. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1826 and established a classical school for boys in Washington, D.C. In 1830, he was admitted to the bar in Washington, although he chose to settle and practice in Cincinnati. Throughout his life he was vehemently opposed to slavery. In the 1830s and 1840s he defended fugitive slaves in the court room. He was one of the founders of the Liberty Party organized in Ohio in 1841. In 1849, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, and throughout that decade he vigorously opposed the repeal of the Missouri compromise. As a Senator he also supported cheap postage, the homestead law, and economic development. In 1855, he was elected governor of Ohio. In 1860, he competed for the Republican Presidential nomination. In 1861, President Lincoln appointed Chase his Secretary of Treasury. He secretly made a bid for the 1864 Presidential election, before deciding to support Lincoln's re-election. In 1864, Lincoln appointed him Chief of Justice and he was the first Chief of Justice to preside over an impeachment trial. He suffered an attack of paralysis in 1870 and lived the rest of his life in recluse, until his 1873 death.