of the day; or by his fearless desertion of all reigning
politics to lead a feeble band of protestants through the wilderness of
anti-slavery wanderings, its pillar of cloud by day, its pillar of fire
by night; or as Governor of Ohio facing the intimidations of the slave
States, backed by Federal power and a storm of popular passion; or in
consolidating the triumphant politics on the urgent issue which was to
flame out into rebellion and revolt; or in his serene predominance,
during the trial of the President, over the rage of party hate which
brought into peril the cooerdination of the great departments of
Government, and threatened its whole frame--in all these marked
instances of public duty, as in the simple routine of his ordinary
conduct, Mr. Chase asked but one question to determine his course of
action, "Is it right?" If it were, he had strength, and will, and
courage to carry him through with it.

In the ten years of professional life which followed his admission to
the bar, Mr. Chase established a repute for ability, integrity,
elevation of purpose and capacity for labor, which would have surely
brought him the highest rewards of forensic prosperity and distinction,
and in due course, of eminent judicial station. In this quieter part of
his life, as in his public career, it is noticeable that his employments
were never common-place, but savored of a public zest and interest. His
compilation of the Ohio Statutes was a _magnum opus_, indeed, for the
leisure hours of a young lawyer, and possesses a permanent value,
justifying the assurance Chancellor Kent gave him, that this surprising
labor would find its "reward in the good he had done, in the talents he
had shown, and in the gratitude of his profession."

But this quiet was soon broken, never to be resumed, and though the
great office of Chief-Justice was in store for him, it was to be reached
by the path of statesmanship and not of jurisprudence.

If it had seemed ever to Mr. Chase and his youthful contemporaries, that
they had come upon times when, as Sir Thomas Browne thought two hundred
years ago, "it is too late to be ambitious," and "the great mutations of
the world are acted," the illusion was soon dispelled. It has been sadly
said of Greece in the age of Plutarch, that "all her grand but turbulent
activities, all her noble agitations spent, she was only haunted by the
spectres of her ancient renown." No doubt, forty years ago, in this
country, there