wever that a complete change of
position would defeat its own purpose. On one important point indeed
Judge Chase never wavered and was unwilling to compromise. In all
utterances and all communications he firmly maintained the principle
of universal suffrage as the primary article of his political creed.
If the Democrats should accept him they must accept this doctrine
with him. Six weeks prior to the Convention Mr. August Belmont in a
private letter advised him that the leading Democrats of New York
were favorable to his nomination, and urged upon him that with the
settlement of the slavery question, the issue which separated him from
the Democratic party had disappeared. Judge Chase replied that the
slavery question had indeed been settled, but that in the question of
Reconstruction it had a successor which partook largely of the same
nature. He had been a party to the pledge of freedom for the
enfranchised race, and the fulfillment of that pledge required, in his
judgment, "the assurance of the right of suffrage to those whom the
Constitution has made freemen and citizens."

Not long after this correspondence the Chief Justice caused a formal
summary of his political views to be published, with the evident
purpose of gaining the good will of the "American Democracy." The
summary touched lightly on most of the controversial political
questions, and contained nothing to which the Democrats would not have
readily assented except the declaration for universal suffrage. To
this policy all Democratic acts and expressions had been
uncompromisingly hostile, and the sentiment of the party might not
easily be brought to accept a change which was at once so radical and
so repugnant to its temper and its training. Judge Chase hoped to
induce its acquiescence and believed that such an advance might open
the way to success. But his tenacity on this point was undoubtedly
an obstacle to his nomination. Another difficulty was the strenuous
opposition of the Ohio delegates and the zealous preference for Mr.
Pendleton. Superadded to all these objections was a popular aversion
to any thing which looked like a subordination of judicial trust to
political aims. Incurring this reproach through what seemed to be
inordinate ambition, Judge Chase had forfeited something of the
strength to secure which could be the only motive for his nomination
by his old political opponents.

Notwithstanding all these apparent obstacles, there w