Salmon P. Chase

U.S. Senator / Jurist

Name at birth: Salmon Portland Chase

Salmon P. Chase was U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the critical early years of the Civil War. Chase had for many years been a leading citizen of Cincinnati and a lawyer well-known for defending escaped slaves. (Angry Southerners called him "The Attorney General of Fugitive Slaves.") Chase was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1848 and served one term, after which he was twice elected governor of Ohio (in 1856 and 1858) and then was again elected senator in 1860. Two days after taking office, he left the Senate to join Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. Chase resigned his Treasury post in 1864 and ran against Lincoln for the Republican nomination for president; he lost, but later that same year Lincoln appointed him to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In that role Chase presided over the 1868 impeachment trial of president Andrew Johnson.

Extra credit: Chase graduated from Dartmouth College in 1826... He was a deeply religious man. According to the Ohio History Central site, "During Chase's years as secretary of the treasury, the United States began to print "In God We Trust" on all currency"... The Bureau of Internal Revenue, later the Internal Revenue Service, was established during his time at the Treasury.

Chase appears with Alexander Hamilton and others in our loop On The Money.

Other Supreme Court chief justices: John Marshall, William Howard Taft and William Rehnquist.

Blog posts mentioning Salmon P. Chase:
The 'Fishy' Name of Salmon P. Chase