ry people opposed separate party action. Garrison and his
_Liberator_ violently denounced such action. Moral suasion was urged
as the panacea. Chase himself had not been a "third party" man. In
1840, when there was an Abolition ticket in the field, headed by his
personal friend, James G. Birney, he had not supported it. But soon
afterwards, becoming firmly convinced that Anti-Slavery people had
nothing to hope for from either of the old parties, he set about the
work of building a new one. The undertaking was with no mental
reservation on his part. When he put his hand to that plow there was
no looking back, notwithstanding that a rougher or more stony field,
and one less promising of returns for the laborer than that before
him, would be difficult to imagine.

In 1841 he headed a call for a convention at Columbus, the State
capital, to organize the Liberty party in the State of Ohio, and at
the same time nominate a State ticket. Less than a hundred
sympathizers responded to the call, and the ticket put in nomination
received less than one thousand votes.

Among the attendants at the Columbus meeting was a near kinsman of the
author. On his return, in describing the proceedings, he said that
pretty much everything was directed by a Mr. Chase (Salamander Chase
was his name, he said), a young Cincinnati lawyer. That young man, he
declared, would yet make a mark in the world.

From that time every important move was directed by Chase. He prepared
the calls for important meetings. He wrote their addresses and their
platforms. He made the leading speeches. He presided at the great
convention at Buffalo in 1848, which formulated the "Free-Soil"
party--successor to the Liberty party--and wrote the platform which it
adopted.

In speaking of Chase's share in the independent organization of this
time, William M. Evarts says: "He must be awarded the full credit of
having understood, resolved upon, planned, organized, and executed
this political movement."

The movement thus conducted by Mr. Chase was slow and tremendously
laborious, but it was effective. In the presidential elections of 1844
and 1848 it held the balance of power and turned the scale to further
its purposes. In 1852 it shattered and destroyed one of the old
pro-slavery parties, and became the second party in the country
instead of the third. In eight years more it was the first.

The charge has been made against Mr. Chase that, while a member of
Lincoln's C