Salmon Portland Chase (January 13, 1808 – May 7, 1873) was an American politician and jurist who served as the sixth chief justice of the United States from 1864 to his death in 1873.

Born in Cornish, New Hampshire, Chase studied law under Attorney General William Wirt before establishing a legal practice in Cincinnati.

In the aftermath of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, Chase helped establish the Republican Party, which opposed the extension of slavery into the territories.

Chase sought the Republican nomination for president in the 1860 presidential election, but the party chose Abraham Lincoln at its National Convention.

Partly to appease the Radical Republicans, Lincoln nominated Chase to fill the Supreme Court vacancy that arose following Chief Justice Roger Taney's death.

His paternal immigrant ancestor was Aquila Chase from Cornwall, England, a ship-master who settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, about 1640, while his maternal grandparents Alexander Ralston and Janette Balloch were Scottish, originally from Falkirk.

[3][4][5] His mother was left with ten children and few resources, and so Salmon lived from 1820 to 1824 in Ohio with his uncle, Bishop Philander Chase, a leading figure in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the West and the founder of Kenyon College.

[5] Chase then moved to the District of Columbia, where he opened a classical school while studying law under U.S. Attorney General William Wirt.

[citation needed] Chase moved to a country home near Loveland, Ohio,[8] and practiced law in Cincinnati from 1830.

[2][10] He became particularly devoted to the abolition of slavery after the death of his first wife, Katherine Jane Garmiss, in 1835, shortly after their March 1834 wedding.

"[12] His argument in the case of Jones v. Van Zandt on the constitutionality of fugitive slave laws before the U.S. Supreme Court attracted particular attention.

[citation needed] Chase drafted the Free-Soil platform,[17] and it was chiefly through his influence that Van Buren was their nominee for president in 1848.

[16] Chase's goal, however, was not to establish a permanent new party organization, but to bring pressure to bear upon Northern Democrats to force them to oppose the extension of slavery.

[20] The "Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States", written by Chase and Giddings, and published in The New York Times on January 24, 1854, may be regarded as the earliest draft of the Republican party creed.

During his time in office, from 1856 to 1860, he supported improved property rights for women, changes to public education, and prison reform.

[23] He was also a participant in the February 1861 Peace Conference in Washington, D.C., a meeting of leading American politicians held in an effort to resolve the burgeoning secession crisis and to preserve the Union on the eve of the Civil War.

[citation needed] During the Civil War, Chase served as Secretary of the Treasury in President Lincoln's cabinet from 1861 to 1864.

In that period of crisis, there were two great changes in American financial policy: the establishment of a national banking system and the issue of paper currency.

He worked with Jay Cooke & Company to successfully manage the sale of $500 million (~$11.9 billion in 2023) in government war bonds (known as 5/20s) in 1862.

In an effort to increase the public's recognition of him, Chase put his own face on a variety of U.S. paper currency, starting with the $1 bill, possibly to further his political career.

On May 5, 1862, Chase accompanied President Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, and Brigadier General Egbert Ludovicus Viele in what would become a pivotal week for Union forces.

Chase went with Major General John E. Wool, in command of the Federals at Fort Monroe, to inspect beach locations for a potential troop landing and relayed to Lincoln that he and General Wool had found "a good and convenient landing place" on the south shore, safely away from the Confederates' ironclad, the CSS Virginia.

[32] Throughout his term as Treasury Secretary, Chase exploited his position to build up political support for another run at the presidency in 1864.

[36] But to placate the party's Radical wing, Lincoln mentioned Chase as a potential Supreme Court nominee.

[45] As early as 1868, Chase concluded that: Congress was right in not limiting, by its reconstruction acts, the right of suffrage to whites; but wrong in the exclusion from suffrage of certain classes of citizens and all unable to take its prescribed retrospective oath, and wrong also in the establishment of despotic military governments for the States and in authorizing military commissions for the trial of civilians in time of peace.

[46]A few months before his death, Chase found himself in the minority of a 5–4 ruling in the Slaughter-House Cases, which greatly limited the scope of the powers given the federal government under the Fourteenth Amendment to protect Americans from state violations of their civil rights.

Engraved on the pitcher were the words “A testimonial of gratitude to Salmon P. Chase from the Colored People of Cincinnati for his various public services in behalf of the oppressed.

[54] In May 1865, Chase was elected a 3rd class companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS).

[citation needed] Chase's portrait appears on the United States $10,000 bill, the largest denomination of U.S. currency to publicly circulate.