In 1841 he headed a call for a convention at Columbus,
the State capital, to organize the Liberty party in
the State of Ohio, and at the same time nominate a
State ticket. Less than a hundred sympathizers
responded to the call, and the ticket put in nomination
received less than one thousand votes.
Among the attendants at the Columbus meeting was a
near kinsman of the author. On his return, in
describing the proceedings, he said that pretty much
everything was directed by a Mr. Chase (Salamander
Chase was his name, he said), a young Cincinnati lawyer.
That young man, he declared, would yet make a mark
in the world.
From that time every important move was directed by
Chase. He prepared the calls for important meetings.
He wrote their addresses and their platforms.
He made the leading speeches. He presided at the
great convention at Buffalo in 1848, which formulated
the “Free-Soil” party—successor
to the Liberty party—and wrote the platform
which it adopted.
In speaking of Chase’s share in the independent
organization of this time, William M. Evarts says:
“He must be awarded the full credit of having
understood, resolved upon, planned, organized, and
executed this political movement.”
The movement thus conducted by Mr. Chase was slow
and tremendously laborious, but it was effective.
In the presidential elections of 1844 and 1848 it
held the balance of power and turned the scale to further
its purposes. In 1852 it shattered and destroyed
one of the old pro-slavery parties, and became the
second party in the country instead of the third.
In eight years more it was the first.
The charge has been made against Mr. Chase that, while
a member of Lincoln’s Cabinet, he aspired to
supersede his chief in the Presidency. But did
he not have a right to seek the higher office, especially
when the policy pursued by its incumbent did not meet
his full approval? He merely shared the sentiment
that was then entertained by nearly all the radical
Anti-Slavery people of the country. It is not
unlikely that Chase felt somewhat envious of Lincoln.
After, as he stated in his letter of congratulation
to Mr. Lincoln on his first election, he had given
nineteen years of continuous and exhausting labor
to the freedom movement, it would be but natural that
he should feel aggrieved when he saw that the chief
credit of that movement was likely to go to one who
had, to his own exclusion, come up slowly and reluctantly
at a later day to its support. If he were somewhat
jealous, it would be hard not to sympathize with him.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
If I were asked to name the man who, next to Salmon
P. Chase, most effectually and meritoriously contributed
to the liberation of the black man in this country,
I should unhesitatingly say John Quincy Adams.
