y of the details, and
induced Congress to accept them. The success of that system alone
warrants his being placed in the first rank of American financiers. It
not only secured an immediate market for government bonds, but it also
provided a permanent uniform national currency, which, though inelastic,
is absolutely stable. The issue of legal tenders, the greatest financial
blunder of the war, was made contrary to his wishes, although he did
not, as he perhaps ought to have done, push his opposition to the point
of resigning.

Perhaps Chase's chief defect as a statesman was an insatiable desire for
supreme office. It was partly this ambition, and also temperamental
differences from the president, which led him to retire from the cabinet
in June 1864. A few months later (December 6, 1864) he was appointed
chief justice of the United States Supreme Court to succeed Judge Taney,
a position which he held until his death in 1873. Among his most
important decisions were _Texas v. White_ (7 Wallace, 700), 1869, in
which he asserted that the Constitution provided for an "indestructible
union composed of indestructible states," _Veazie Bank_ v. _Fenno_ (8
Wallace, 533), 1869, in defence of that part of the banking legislation
of the Civil War which imposed a tax of 10% on state bank-notes, and
_Hepburn_ v. _Griswold_ (8 Wallace, 603), 1869, which declared certain
parts of the legal tender acts to be unconstitutional. When the legal
tender decision was reversed after the appointment of new judges,
1871-1872 (Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wallace, 457), Chase prepared a very
able dissenting opinion. Toward the end of his life he gradually drifted
back toward his old Democratic position, and made an unsuccessful effort
to secure the nomination of the Democratic party for the presidency in
1872. He died in New York city on the 7th of May 1873. Chase was one of
the ablest political leaders of the Civil War period, and deserves to be
placed in the front rank of American statesmen.

The standard biography is A.B. Hart's _Salmon Portland Chase_ in the
"American Statesmen Series" (1899). Less philosophical, but containing
a greater wealth of detail, is J.W. Shuckers' _Life and Public
Services of Salmon Portland Chase_ (New York, 1874). R.B. Warden's
_Account of the Private Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland
Chase_ (Cincinnati, 1874) deals more fully with Chase's private life.

CHASE, SAMUEL (1741-1811), American juri