Chase's mental processes were slow, but time being given, he had
the capacity to form sound opinions. Not infrequently, when I called
at his office for conference, he would say: "My mind is preoccupied--
you must either decide for yourself, or call again." As a result, he
never gave an opinion or tendered any advice in relation to the
business of the Internal Revenue Office while I was at the head of it.
Mr. Chase had only a limited knowledge of the business of the
department. Indeed, only a very extraordinary man could have
administered the business of the department systematically, with a
daily or frequent knowledge of the doings of the many heads of bureaus
and divisions, and at the same time have matured and put into
operation, the financial measures which were required by the exigencies
of the war.

Mr. Chase's three great measures were the Abolition of State Banks
and the substitution of the National Banking System, the issue of the
United States legal tender notes, and the issue of the Five-Twenty
Bonds. In combination, as a financial system, they enabled the country
to carry a debt of three thousand million dollars, and it is probable
that a debt of six thousand million would not have paralyzed the
public credit. It is an instance of the frailty of human nature, when
men are in the presence of great temptations, that when he became
Chief Justice of the United States, he announced the opinion that the
issue of United States legal tender notes was unconstitutional. That
measure was the key to his financial system, and a measure
indispensable to the prosecution of the war. It was a forced loan, but
in an exigency a government has as good a right to force capital into
the public service as to force men. If in 1862 Mr. Chase had acted
upon the doctrine set forth in his judicial opinion in the Hepburn
and Griswold case, the probability is that the government of Mr.
Lincoln would have been reduced financially to an equality with the
government of the Confederate States. The ultimate reversal of that
opinion is the most important act of the Supreme Court. It gives to
the political department of the Government, the power to convert all
the resources of the country into the means of defence in time of war,
foreign or domestic.

While I held the office of commissioner of internal revenue, I had
occasion to consult Mr. Bates, the Attorney-General. He was a kind
hearted gentleman, but lacking in vigor and offic