Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

Chase (1808-1873) represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate as a Free-Soil Democrat from 1849-1855, when he was elected Governor of Ohio as a Free Soil Democrat in 1855. He was reelected as a Republican in 1857. Chase returned to the Senate on March 4, 1861, but resigned two days later to become President Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury. During his term in the Treasury Department, Chase and Lincoln frequently disagreed, and Chase regularly offered to resign. In February 1864, a group of radical Republicans proposed Chase for President. Chase did nothing to stop the movement. At the June 7-8, 1864 convention, Lincoln was nominated on the first ballot. After another quarrel with the President three weeks later, Chase once again submitted his resignation. To his surprise, on June 30, 1864, Lincoln accepted it. In another surprise move, President Lincoln appointed Chase Chief Justice on December 6, 1864. In that position, which he occupied until his death in 1873, Chase was dedicated to the rights of Black Americans and supported the Reconstruction Acts. In 1868, his impartial conduct of President Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial angered his Radical Republican friends. Some Democrats suggested Chase as their 1868 presidential candidate, to no avail.