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authorizing military commissions for the trial of civilians in time of peace. There should have been as little military government as possible; no military commissions, no classes excluded from suffrage, and no oath except one of faithful obedience and support to the constitution and laws, and sincere attachment to the constitutional government of the United States. I am glad to know that many intelligent southern Democrats agree with me in these views, and are willing to accept universal suffrage and universal amnesty as the basis of reconstruction and restoration. They see that the shortest way to revive prosperity, possible only with contented industry, is universal suffrage now, and universal amnesty, with removal of all disabilities, as speedily as possible through the action of the state and national governments. I have long been a believer in the wisdom and justice of securing the right of suffrage to all citizens by state constitutions and legislation. It is the best guarantee of the stability of institutions, and the prosperity of communities. My views on this subject were well known when the Democrats elected me to the senate in 1849. I have now answered your letter as I think I ought to answer it. I beg you to believe me — for I say it in all sincerity — that I do not desire the office of president, nor a nomination for it. Nor do I know that, with my views and convictions, I am a suitable candidate for any party. Of that my countrymen must judge.”

Judge Chase subsequently prepared a declaration of principles, embodying the ideas of his letter, and submitted it to those Democrats who desired his nomination, as a platform in that event. But this was not adopted by the convention, and the plan to nominate him, if there was such a plan, failed. In June, 1870, he suffered an attack of paralysis, and from that time till his death he was an invalid. As in the case of President Lincoln and Sec. Stanton, his integrity was shown by the fact that, though he had been a member of the administration when the government was spending millions of dollars a day, he died comparatively poor. His remains were buried in Washington; but in October, 1886, were removed, with appropriate ceremony, to Cincinnati, Ohio, and deposited in Spring Grove cemetery near that city. Besides his reports and decisions, Mr. Chase published a compilation of the statutes of Ohio, with annotations and an historical sketch (3 vols., Cincinnati, 1832). See “ Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase,” by J. W. Schuckers (New York, 1874).

CHASE, Samuel, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. in Somerset co., Md., 17 April, 1741 ; d. 19 June, 1811. His father, an Episcopa- lian clergyman of English birth, and a fine classi- cal scholar, had charge of his early education, and sent him, at the age of eighteen, to study law at Annapolis, where he was admitted to the bar in 1761 and began practice. He was soon prominent in his profession, and became a member of the co- lonial legislature, where he distinguished himself by his independent bearing and by his opposition to the royal governor. He voted at one time for a resolution relating to the support of the clergy, by which his father, then rector of St. Paul's, Bal- timore, lost half his income. He was an ardent patriot, vehemently resisted the stamp-act, and was prominent in an assemblage of the " Sons of lib- erty" at Annapolis that forcibly opened the public offices, destroyed the stamps, and burned the col- lector in effigy. He afterward published a letter to the authorities, avowing and defending his con- nection with this affair. The Maryland conven- tion sent him as one of five delegates to the Con- tinental congress of 1774, and he continued a member of successive congresses until the end of 1778. The Maryland delegates v>tere restricted, by special instructions of the convention, from voting for independence, and Mr. Chase, chafing at being obliged to withhold open support from a measure he so enthusiastically favored, gladly accepted from congress a mission to Canada, in company with Benjamin Franklin and Charles Carroll. The mission, the object of which was to persuade Cana- da to join the colonies, was fruitless ; and on his return Mr. Chase canvassed the state of Maryland, and obtained from county meetings expressions of patriotic sentiment that the convention could not resist. It now voted for independence, and Mr. Chase returned to Philadelphia just in time to join in adopting the decisive resolution. He was appointed on most of the important committees in congress, where his industry was unwearied. In 1778 he drafted an eloquent address to the people of the country, in answer to papers that had been circulated by the tories. During the last two or three years of the war he devoted himself to his private law business, which he had not hesitated to neglect, while in congress, for his public duties. In 1783 he was sent to England by the Maryland legislature, as agent of the state, to recover money that had been invested by it in the bank of England before the war. He remained there for nearly a m year, succeeded in recovering $650,000, and made the ac- quaintance of many eminent lawyers, includ- ing Pitt, Fox, and Edmund Burke, whose guest he was for a week. Chase was thanked by the legislature for his " zeal

and fidelity, diligence and ability " in this mission. He removed to Baltimore in 1786, became chief jus- tice of a newly established criminal court there in 1788, and also a member of the Maryland convention that adopted the federal constitution. AltJiough he did not think this instrument democratic enough, lamented the " monarchical principles " that had come into vogue, and was an admirer of France, he was throughout his life an earnest federalist. In 1791 he became chief justice of the general court of Maryland, and in 1794 distinguished himself by his course on the occasion of a riot. He had caused the arrest of two popular men as leaders ; but they refused to give bail, and the sheriff was apprehensive of a rescue should he take them to prison. " Call out the posse comitatus, then," said the judge. " Sir," was the reply, " no one will serve." " Summon me, then ; I will be the posse comitatus ; I will take them to jail." Such was the state of the public mind that the grand jury, instead of presenting the rioters, presented the judge for holding a place in two courts at the same time. He simply told them that they had meddled with topics beyond their province. Wash- ington made Judge Chase an associate justice of