co-operated with him, though on many important subjects we widely
differed. His appointment as Secretary of the Treasury left me
chairman of the committee on finance, but my intercourse with him
continued while he was secretary. During the short period in which
he held that office, I had many conferences with him in respect to
pending questions. When he returned to the Senate, on the 4th of
March, 1865, he resumed his old place as chairman of the committee
on finance, and continued in that position nearly two years, when,
his health becoming more feeble, he resigned his membership of that
committee, and I again took his place as chairman and held it until
appointed Secretary of the Treasury in 1877. His health continued
to fail and he died at Portland, Maine, September 8, 1869.

With Mr. Chase I had but little acquaintance and no sympathy during
his early political career. His edition of the "Statutes of Ohio"
was his first work of any importance. He was at times supposed to
be a Whig and then again classed as a Democrat. Later he became
a member of the national convention of Free Soilers held at Buffalo,
August 9, 1848, over which he presided. This convention was composed
of delegates from eighteen states, and included in its active
members many of the most eminent Whigs and Democrats of a former
time. It nominated Martin Van Buren for the Presidency, and Charles
Francis Adams for Vice President. General Taylor, the nominee of
the Whig party, was elected President, but Mr. Van Buren received
291,342 votes, being nearly one-eighth of the whole number of votes
cast.

It so happened that when the Ohio legislature met in December,
1848, it was composed of an equal number of Whigs and Democrats
and of two members, Townsend and Morse, who classed themselves as
Free Soilers. They practically dictated the election of Mr. Chase
as United States Senator. They secured his election by an
understanding, express or implied, with the Democratic members,
that they would vote for Democrats for all the numerous offices,
which, under the constitution of the state as it then stood, were
appointed by the legislature. This bargain and sale--so-called--
created among the Whigs a strong prejudice against Chase. But
events in Congress, especially the act repealing the Missouri
Compromise, practically dissolved existing parties, and left Mr.
Chase in the vantage ground of having resisted this measure with
firmness. He was uni