Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase | Page 8

the substitution of what has been
aptly and accurately called the "coined credit" of the Government for
its coined money--all these exigencies and all these expedients made up
the daily problems of the Secretary's life. We may have some
conception of the magnitude of these financial operations, by
considering one of the subordinate contrivances required to give to the
currency of the country the enormous volume and the ready circulation
without which the tides of revenue and expenditure could not have
maintained their flow. I refer to the transfer of the paper money of the
country from the State to the national banks. This transaction,
financially and politically, transcends in magnitude and difficulty, of
itself alone, any single measure of administrative government found in
our history, yet the conception, the plan, and the execution, under the
conduct of Mr. Chase, took less time and raised less disturbance than it
is the custom of our politics to accord to a change in our tariff or a
modification of a commercial treaty. Another special instance of
difficult and complicated administration was that of the renewal of the
intercourse of trade, to follow closely the success of our arms, and
subdue the interests of the recovered region to the requirements of the
Government. But I cannot insist on details, where all was vast and
surprising and prosperous. I hazard nothing in saying that the
management of the finances of the civil war was the marvel of Europe
and the admiration of our own people. For a great part of the wisdom,
the courage, and the overwhelming force of will which carried us
through the stress of this stormy sea, the country stands under deep
obligations to Mr. Chase as its pilot through its fiscal perils and
perplexities. Whether the genius of Hamilton, dealing with great
difficulties and with small resources, transcended that of Chase,

meeting the largest exigencies with great resources, is an unprofitable
speculation. They stand together, in the judgment of their countrymen,
the great financiers of our history.
A somewhat persistent discrepancy of feeling and opinion between the
President and the Secretary, in regard to an important office in the
public service, induced Mr. Chase to resign his portfolio, and Mr.
Lincoln to acquiesce in his desire. No doubt, it is not wholly fortunate
in our Government that the distribution of patronage, a mixed question
of party organization and public service, should so often harass and
embarrass administration, even in difficult and dangerous times. Mr.
Lincoln's ludicrous simile is an incomparable description of the system
as he found it. He said, at the outset of his administration, that "he was
like a man letting rooms at one end of his house, while the other end
was on fire." Some criticism of the Secretary's resignation and of the
occasion of it, at the time, sought to impute to them consequences of
personal acerbity between these eminent men, and the mischiefs of
competing ambitions and discordant counsels for the public interests.
But the appointment of Mr. Chase to the chief-justiceship of the United
States silenced all this evil speech and evil surmise.
There is no doubt that Mr. Chase greatly desired this office, its dignity
and durability both considered, the greatest gratification, to personal
desires, and the worthiest in public service, and in public esteem, that
our political establishment affords. Fortunate, indeed, is he who, in the
estimate of the profession of the law, and in the general judgment of his
countrymen, combines the great natural powers, the disciplined
faculties, the large learning, the larger wisdom, the firm temper, the
amiable serenity, the stainless purity, the sagacious statesmanship, the
penetrating insight, which make up the qualities that should preside at
this high altar of justice, and dispense to this great people the final
decrees of a government "not of men, but of laws." To whatever
President it comes, as a function of his supreme authority, to assign this
great duty to the worthiest, there is given an opportunity of
immeasurable honor for his own name, and of vast benefits to his
countrymen, outlasting his own brief authority, and perpetuating its
remembrance in the permanent records of justice, "the main interest of

all human society," so long as it holds sway among men. John Adams,
from the Declaration of Independence down, and with the singular
felicity of his line of personal descendants, has many titles to renown,
but by no act of his life has he done more to maintain the constituted
liberties which he joined in declaring, or to confirm his own fame, than
by giving to the United States the great Chief-Justice Marshall, to be to
us, forever, through every storm that shall beset our ship of state--
"Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw, And saving them that eye
it."
In this disposition,