We are now six weeks away from the publication, on November 9, of my Salmon Chase biography. I have not yet seen the final printed book, but expect to have one or two in my hands in perhaps two or three weeks. I have just posted, over on the events page, the list of Chase…

Last year I posted about Salmon Chase’s Memorial Day letter, from 1869, worth reading again this weekend. Chief Justice Chase was in South Carolina for circuit court duties, and he had been invited to attend an event at a cemetery just outside Charleston, South Carolina. Chase had to decline but explained his hopes as follows:…

My book on Salmon Chase is progressing towards publication on November 9, 2021. The marketing staff at Simon & Schuster, about a month ago, suggested that the title did not work well. For one thing, the word “Chase” usually suggests Chase Bank, or a car chase, rather than Salmon P. Chase. For another, even with…

Watching the inauguration of Joe Biden today, and joining in his prayers for America, I was thinking about some of the inaugurations in which Salmon Chase participated. The first was the first inauguration of Andrew Jackson, in 1829. Chase was a young law student in Washington at the time, reading law with William Wirt, attorney…

This morning’s Washington Post accused Abraham Lincoln of packing the Supreme Court. The Post said: “Lincoln definitely supported . . . court-packing. In 1863, he and Republicans in Congress passed a law to create a 10th Supreme Court seat for largely partisan reasons. All told, Lincoln appointed five justices in just four years and five…

Last night, in the vice presidential debate, Senator Kamala Harris cited Abraham Lincoln as an example of the wisdom of waiting to make a Supreme Court nomination. She pointed out that when Chief Justice Roger Taney died, on October 12, 1864, Lincoln did not immediately nominate Taney’s successor. Lincoln waited, until after the presidential election…