good morning. my name is jonathan white and i'm the vice chair the lincoln forum walter star was an accomplished lawyer for 25 years before turning to the writing of biography. his first book was a biography of the founding father, john jay. he has since authored biographies of three of lincoln's most important cabinet. seward lincoln's man, stanton, lincoln's war secretary, and salmon chase, lincoln's vital rival, which appeared earlier this year. seward and stanton won the william seward award for excellence in civil war biography. and next. this is a secret. so don't, don't, don't tell anyone. next year, chase will receive the prestigious $50,000 thomas cooley prize. congratulations to walter. chase is a remarkable piece of writing that will stand as as standard biography of chase for years to come. walter is stuck in ohio now. it seems he is presently writing a biography. william howard taft. on a personal note, i wanted to add that every i visit my in-laws in southern california and i always make it a point to take about an hour and a half north to see walter star. and it's always one of the highlights of the trip to grab dinner. a beer with him. please me in welcoming walter star. thank and good morning. in march 1849, just abraham lincoln finished his two years in the u.s. house of representatives salmon. chase arrived in washington to, start his six years in the united states. and the two men overlapped in washington for about four weeks. as best i can tell, they didn't meet at that time. but if they had met and if they had talked about politics, they would not have on much. we like to think of as an anti-slavery whig, but up to this point, lincoln's life, he had said and done almost nothing about slavery. salmon chase, on the other hand was at this point, america's leading political anti slavery activist. moreover, salmon chase was active in the courts. representing blacks and accused slaves. he'd even argued a case in the united states supreme court in he unsuccessfully claimed the fugitive slave law was unconstitutional. lincoln, on the other hand, had never represented a fugitive slave and indeed had represented white master trying to keep people in slavery in the supposedly free state of illinois. there, now that i've awakened everyone, let me back up, provide a few details. jason lincoln we're about the same age. chase was born in new in 1808. lincoln in 1809. unlike lincoln, chase had gone to college. he, an honors graduate of dartmouth. after graduation, he moved to washington, where he lived for four years and taught read law spent his time listening debates in the senate and arguments in the supreme court, both of which would come in handy later in life. he moved to cincinnati, ohio, to start legal career somewhat like lincoln, moved to springfield to start his legal career. and they were both from the outset of the whig party, members of that party, and they were both elected to office. lincoln to the legislature. chase to cincinnati city council. but in 1841. chase the whig party. the tiny liberty party. and when i say tiny, i mean tiny. in the prior presidential election, 40, only 7000 men voted for the liberty party. that's less than one third of 1%. that's fewer than the libertarians or the green party get in current presidential elections. so we're talking about a tiny band of of what everyone else viewed as as extremists and eccentrics. chase out to change that. as soon as joined the liberty party he wanted to the party from the abolition lists. he he often called an abolitionist and. he had many friends who were abolitionists but he did not call himself an. he called himself anti-slavery. in his mind, the distinction was that an abolitionist was someone like william lloyd garrison, who wanted to slavery immediately, an anti slavery man. chase wanted simply to get federal government out of the slavery business. unlike garrison who famously burned a copy the constitution at a public rally. chase embraced the cons and interpreted it as an anti-slavery document. so in 1844, for example, published something called the liberty man's creed, which is a good sort beginning of view of his anti-slavery views. he starts with with jefferson, i believe all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life and the pursuit of happiness. then he argued that jefferson and the other founding were really opposed to slavery. i believe that the settled policy of the government at the time of the adoption of the constitution was to limit and not to extend the nationalized slavery the constitution quote confers on congress no power to establish or uphold slavery anywhere but. on the contrary, expressly prohibits the general government from depriving any person of liberty, except by process of law. this meant, chase said, that slavery was unconscious to tution in the district of columbian and in the other federal territories and in any state that had been formed out territory such as louisiana ghana. so at least this point chase is not the position that he and lincoln later take, namely that, slavery was, how shall we say, legal, if deplorable, in the slave. no, he was taking an even more radical position that slavery, not legal in places like louisiana. as i mentioned, chase was also active as a lawyer. he had a how shall we say, a standard legal of representing banks, companies and criminal defendants. but he also had an active pro-bono practice representing, blacks and accused fugitives. and in 1845, the of cincinnati to thank him for this work commissioned a small silver pitcher. it's about that high high and presented it to him as and in his of thanks chase. among other things denounced the provision in the ohio state constitution that denied blacks the right to vote. he said quote, true democracy, makes no inquiry about color of the skin or the place of nativity or any other similar circum stance or condition. he also denounced the state law that prohibited black children from attending the public. this, he said, was ensconced inconsistent with the state constitution, which promised public education any distinction or, preference, whatever. these were bold statements in 1845, and chase ensured that they were heard not just by his black audience, but by a wider audience. he printed them in a pamphlet. and that that those statements would be quoted back against him in later. political campaigns. under headlines that said that chase in favor of black voting and black integration into the public schools. except that the headlines used a much uglier word than black. lincoln never made statements and represented a fugitive slave. yes, in as many of you know, in 1841, he argued in bailey, the cromwell, that a black woman nance was free. but lincoln's client in that case was, not nance. his client was the white master who had purged stands and who now was trying to get out of the purchase, claiming that her status had been misrepresented in 1847. lincoln represented a kentucky master, robert matzen, who was keeping jane bryant and her children in slavery in, the supposedly free state of illinois, lincoln argued that manson was permitted to keep slaves temporarily in illinois, even though jane bryant had been in illinois more than two years at the time of court case. the court pretty quickly rejected lincoln's argument and declared jane free. now, some of lincoln's biographers literally do not mention the mattson case and some of them try to excuse lincoln with a long story about how he'd already agreed to represent the other side, a story which i think is on late 19th century sources, quite questionable and, some of them more recently, however, have said, look, lincoln shouldn't have agreed to take the case. i agree. a lawyer. and as said, i started life as a. a lawyer does not have to take. every client who walks through his door chase his friends made remarkable in political anti-slavery. the 1840s. as i mentioned the 1840 presidential election about a third of 1% vote for the liberty party candidate in 1844. they get that percentage up to 2.3%. and in 1848, chase engineers a three way merger of the liberty party and anti-slavery elements of the and democratic parties into the free soil party. chase chairs the first convention of the free soil party. he drafts the famous free soil platform and he goes out on the campaign trail to campaign for free soil candidates. they get about 15% of the vote nationwide in on ohio. they enough folks to the ohio legislature that they have the balance power. neither of the two major parties has a majority. so that winter, as the ohio legislature tries organize chase other freestylers engineer a compromise cause they'll give the democrat rats the votes the democrats need in order to take control of the house of representatives. on the other hand, the democrats will give the freestylers the votes they need for two of their priorities. one, to repeal some ohio's black laws, in particular that winter. they repeal the law that prohibits blacks from testifying against in court. and two, to send salmon chase to washington as the state's next federal senator. and thus does chase arrive in early 1849 in washington as what he calls free soil democrat. in that same winter, the ohio legislature is going through of this. lincoln presented to the house of representatives, a bill, quote, abolish slavery in the district of columbia by the consent of the free white people of said district and with compensation asian to owners. lincoln's proposal said that no new slaves could be brought into the district. other slaves of federal officers, and that children born to slaves in the district would be free. but only after serving as quote apprentices, until they became adults. the bill only take effect if it was ratified by the voters. the white voters of the district of columbia and. it also required federal officers to, quote, provide and efficient means to, arrest and deliver, deliver up to their owners all, fugitive slaves escaping into said district. now, chase did not comment on lincoln's bill. it very little press attention. but it is not hard to. imagine his views. slavery in the district was unconstitutional. so congress should just declare that the slaves were free. it shouldn't punt the issue to the voters. the district of columbia. the bill did nothing to help who were enslaved in. the district on the day in which it became effective. so a who was in slaved in the district if the bill had become and if it had been approved, that child would have remained a slave her life unless her master freed her. and finally a case would have objected strenuously that fugitive slave language that precisely the sort of federal in supporting that chase thought was so and so unconstitutional over next six years as a federal senator, chase continues his fight to to limit the federal role in slavery. yeah, there are two major sort of episode weeds of this. one is what we know as the compromise of 1850 in which he opposes all elements of that compromise than admitting my home state of california as a free state. and the second is in 1854, when senator stephen douglas proposes kansas-nebraska bill. chase spends the entire party of that spring fighting that tooth and nail in washington and urging people in the northern to write to their senators and representatives and to to defeat what he calls nebraska iniquity, but with patronage pressures, pressure from president pierce and with the votes some southern whigs, douglas gets that bill through the congress and signed into law on the 38th of may of 1854. so was lincoln doing in the spring of 1854, while chase others were fighting this righteous fight against the kansas-nebraska bill? nothing. there's some suggestion that lincoln might have penned an anonymous editorial in a local springfield paper talking about the bill. but there's no proof of that. there's no mention of the kansas-nebraska bill in lincoln's papers in the spring of 1854. now i can i can feel the room saying peoria. yes. in the fall of 1854. he gives speech in peoria, in which he denounces kansas-nebraska bill. but it's rather late. the bill is already part of the law. if you really wanted to oppose it. the time to do it was in the spring in 1855. the voters of ohio elect chase as their governor. he's the first republican governor of a major state. the new republic and party has been formed out of. the anger at the kansas bill. and he goes to columbus as governor and continues his fight against and his fight for black rights. so, for example, he presses the ohio legislature to pass a bill tightening. the rules about kidnaping because. it was all too common for free blacks to be kidnaped by those claim that they were fugitive slaves. in 1858, during the lincoln douglas campaign, chase goes to illinois in order to campaign for lincoln. there many out of state republicans that year who actually favored silently or not so silently. stephen douglas. they they saw douglass as the wedge that was going to shatter the democratic into two factions. the douglas democrat rats and the buchanan democrats. and they liked that. and they were willing, as lincoln saw it, to sack price lincoln towards that. lincoln and chase didn't in 1858. lincoln was busy with other aspects of the campaign, but lincoln appreciated chase's help. he wrote him early in the new year to thank him. he saying that he was, quote, one of the very few distinguished whose sympathy we in illinois receive last year. of all those whose sympathy we thought we had reason to us to. as 1860 started, if you been making a list of republican presidential candidates, chase would have been probably two or number three on that list of likely presidential candidates. lincoln was well down the as 1860 started. indeed, i found and an article in the new york tribune that listed a dozen presidential. and the most striking thing about that article is it does not mention abraham lincoln chase was in many respects like my prior subject william henry seward at this point he was, you know, he'd been governor, he'd been senator. he was an established anti-slavery figure and going all way through the chicago convention, chase and seward are the likely nominees. and yet, as you all know the delegates in chicago nominated this relatively unknown one term member of congress abraham lincoln. why well if you want the full, you need to buy a copy of the seward book or buy a copy the chase book. but the short version is that chase and seward just had had said and done too much at that point to be acceptable candidates in order to win presidential election. the republicans were going to basically have to win in all the free states because they weren't going to get votes in the slave states and some of the slave states mind. you are not what we think of as southern states. the slave states include places like delaware and missouri. and in order win those states, they're going to need someone who hasn't said things like what chase that he was in favor of black. they're going to need someone who hasn't said things like what seward's said that there's a higher law than the federal constitution which guarantees that the western territories should be free and the delegates in chicago from, illinois and indiana and these are what we would call swing states. they say, look, you cannot nominate folks. you've got to nominate someone else. and the someone else turns out to be abraham lincoln. now, when i wrote my seward book, i contrasted seward and chase after the convention, i said that seward campaigned for lincoln, whereas chase, sat on his his chair. i now i now recant and retract that. he actually campaigned hard for lincoln. he traveled to 12 different states and he gave dozens of important speeches. they weren't covered as heavily as seward speeches, but particularly in new york, which was the critical state. lincoln could not have become president without new york. chase was the ground doing important work and barely, barely. lincoln is elected president. 1860 and and owes that election to people like seward and chase. so it's not surprising that soon as he's elected, as the newspapers are talking about, who's going to be in the cabinet, chase is on that. and on the second day of the new year, 1861, as the southern states are seceding. chase gets a telegram from lincoln in springfield saying, please come to springfield. in these troubles times, i love lincoln's words. in these troubles times i would like to confer with you. chase gets on the train. he goes to springfield. the two men meet face to face for the first time, and they're both impressed with one another. we know this from. the letters that they write right afterwards, lincoln has a complicated proposition to put to chase. he says, look, i'd like to have you in the cabinet as a senior member of the cabinet, but i can't quite offer you a position now because i've given a written offer to simon cameron of pennsylvania you and don't know what his response is. as you can imagine, that didn't sit very well with the proud sam portland chase and he told his friends after he left springfield. indeed, he told his friends right up until inauguration day that he wasn't sure whether he was going to be offered position in lincoln's cabinet and he wasn't sure whether he would take it. and indeed, when he learned he he'd been elected senator again, he learned that lincoln had nominated him. he went to lincoln and said, gee, i'm not sure i want to do this. i'd really rather be a senator. lincoln persuaded him that he really had to serve as the the finances of the states were in a terrible condition. and he needed him in the cabinet. roger lowenstein is going to talk tomorrow about lincoln's the finance of the civil war. so i'm going to leave that, although i'm to take questions. i'm going to talk about chase's military and political role and the sort of slavery aspects. his work as secretary of treasury. you know, i was shocked as i dug into my research how much of chase's wartime correspondence was with generals or, indeed, even lower officers and others, wrote to the secretary of treasury and wrote them back long letters. so we're going to hear in very shortly about benjamin butler. they had a lengthy correspondence, largely while butler is in new orleans, the administrative aspects of that. another of his correspondence, david hunter, the massachusetts general who's in charge down in the south in may of 62, when and lincoln both learned that hunter has issued a proclamation declaring that the slaves in florida, georgia and south carolina are. chase is up to new york for financial meetings and so he writes a short note to lincoln saying that he would very much like to talk him about hunter's proclamation. he thinks that lincoln should not revoke it when he gets back from new york. he reads in the evening newspaper that lincoln has revoked the proclamation and he gets somewhat curt note from lincoln, saying that he, as is going to reserve these issues to himself. chase was so angry that he pens a note to general hunter and he sends it off and he sends a copy to lincoln. he realizes about 4 hours later that that's a mistake. and so among the telegrams in the national archives, i found a telegram from chase to his aide in up in new york urging him to intercept the and pull it out of the mail so it never gets to hunter. he writes a letter to horace greeley friend, the editor of the new york tribune, and saying, you know, look he thought that lincoln, at least owed hunter the a back and forth before issuing the proclamation. but, you know, as he put it in his letter to greeley, lincoln has made his decision. and the only cause for chase in greeley was to be thankful for skim milk. when one can't get cream cream. well, it cream from from chase's perspect