Chase, Salmon P(ortland) (1808-1873)

US public official and chief justice of the USA. He held a US Senate seat 1849-55 and 1860; helped found the Republican Party 1854-56; was elected governor of Ohio 1855; became Abraham Lincoln's secretary of the treasury 1861; and was appointed chief justice of the US Supreme Court 1864. He presided over the impeachment trial of President A Johnson in 1868.

Born in Cornish, New Hampshire, Chase was educated at Dartmouth. He studied law and was admitted to the bar 1829. Moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, he became an abolitionist, often taking the cases of runaway slaves in the campaign to end the institution of slavery.

He was elected to the US Senate as a member of the Free Soil Party (which was opposed to the expansion of slavery in the western territories) and a Democrat. The establishment of a national banking system and the issue of Treasury notes (‘greenbacks’) were two of his most successful measures.