discovered that personal violence to Mr. Birney was contemplated and that his life was in danger. He made all haste to Birney's residence and gave him warning of his peril. Then he took his stand in the doorway of the building and calmly awaited the coming of the rabble. Those who knew Chase will remember that in size he was almost a giant, and his countenance had a stern, determined look. The multitude, finding itself thus unexpectedly confronted, paused and entered into a parley that gave the hunted man an opportunity to reach a place of safety.
Chase had an appointment to speak in the village in which the writer lived, and the opposers of his cause arranged to give him a warm reception. Something prevented his attendance, and a very mild and amiable old clergyman from an adjoining town, who took his place, received the shower-bath of uncooked eggs that had been intended for the Cincinnati Abolitionist.
Chase's great work for the Anti-Slavery cause was in projecting and directing it on independent political lines. Up to that time most Anti-Slavery 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.