Chase was not only a hard-working Secretary of the Treasury but an
ambitious, active-minded, and intriguing politician. He represented in
the administration the more extreme anti-slavery group. He was one of
those who favoured from the beginning immediate action on the part of
the government in regard to the slaves in the territory that was still
controlled by the government. It is doubtless the case that he held
these anti-slavery views as a matter of honest conviction. It is in
evidence also from his correspondence that he connected with these views
the hope and the expectation of becoming President. His scheming for the
nomination for 1864 was carried on with the machinery that he had at his
disposal as Secretary of the Treasury. The issues between Chase and
Seward and between Chase and Stanton were many and bitter. The pressure
on the part of the conservative Republicans to get Chase out of the
Cabinet was considerable. Lincoln, believing that his service was
valuable, refused to be influenced by any feeling of personal antagonism
or personal rivalry. He held on to the Secretary until the last year of
the War, when deciding that the Cabinet could then work more smoothly
without him, he accepted his resignation. Even then, however, although
he had had placed in his hands a note indicating a measure of what might
be called personal disloyalty on the part of Chase, Lincoln was
unwilling to lose his service for the country and appointed him as Chief
Justice.
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