When in Congress, Mr. Harrison, who had often claimed Virginia as the Dominion of the colonies, asked for immediate aid to protect her from the invading foe. When he sat down, Mr. Rodney rose, with assumed gravity and sympathy, and assured the gentleman that the powerful Dominion should be protected: “Let her be of good cheer—she has a friend in need—Delaware will take her under its protection and insure her safety.” The portly Harrison and the skeleton Rodney both enjoyed the “hit,” and the other members were convulsed with laughter.
His constitutional sympathy was so strong that he always avoided, if possible, scenes of physical suffering, and could not be induced to approach the dying bed even of his dearest friend or nearest relative.
SAMUEL CHASE.
To be able to judge correctly of the actions of men, we must understand the philosophy of human nature thoroughly. We must trace the circuit of the immortal mind, follow it through the regions of revolving thought, become familiar with the passions that influence and control it, learn its natural desires, its innate qualities, its springs of action and its multifarious combinations. We must understand its native divinity, its earthly frailty, its malleability, its contractions, its expansions and its original propensities. In addition to all this knowledge, when we judge the conduct of an individual, we must know the predominants and exponents of his mind, the impress it has received from education, the motives that impelled it to action, the circumstances that produced its momentum, its propulsive and repulsive powers, the ultimatum of its designs and its ulterior objects. With all these guides we shall still become involved in errors unless our judgments are based upon the firm foundation of impartiality and are enlightened and warmed by the genial rays of heaven-born charity. Bias and prejudice are ever at our elbows, ready to lead us to false conclusions.
With such criteria before me, I proceed to sketch, concisely, the eventful career of Samuel Chase, a native of Somerset county, Maryland, who was born on the 17th of April, 1741. He was the son of the Rev. Thomas Chase, who immigrated to this country from England, and in 1743 became the pastor of St. Paul’s parish in Baltimore, then a mere country village and destitute of good schools. At the age of two years Samuel was deprived of the tender care of his mother by her premature death. In the superior classical and theological qualifications of his father to guide him in the paths of science and virtue, he was peculiarly fortunate. Under his instructions he became an accomplished scholar, admired and esteemed by a large circle of acquaintances. At the age of eighteen he commenced the study of law, and prosecuted it with great industry under the direction of John Hammond and John Hall of Annapolis. At the age of twenty he was admitted to practice in the mayor’s court, and at twenty-two was admitted to several of the county courts and the court of chancery. He located at Annapolis, married the amiable and intelligent Miss Ann Baldwin, and soon obtained the reputation of a sound lawyer and an able advocate.
He was of a sanguine temperament, bold, fearless and undisguised, independent in mind, language and action, but honest, patriotic and pure in his motives and immovable in his purposes—qualities that dignify a man if prudently balanced, but which often rouse the most implacable enmity in others. These leading traits in the original composition of the nature of Samuel Chase must be kept constantly in view to enable the reader to form a just estimate of his character. The circumstances and times that influenced him must also be borne in mind.
On the flood tide of a prosperous business and forensic fame, in the full enjoyment of domestic felicity and social intercourse with friends, Mr. Chase glided smoothly along until his country began to writhe under kingly oppression. The stamp act, the first born of the pernicious revenue system devised by the putrescent British ministry, met with a hostile reception in Annapolis. Mr. Chase, aided by a band of kindred spirits under the cognomen of the “sons of liberty,” forcibly seized and destroyed the newly imported stamps and burnt in effigy the stamp distributor. No further violence was then committed. The king’s officers opened a newspaper battery against this “furious mob,” and directed their whole artillery at Mr. Chase, complimenting him with the courtly names of “busy, restless incendiary; a ringleader of mobs, a foul-mouthed and inflaming son of discord and faction; a common disturber of the public tranquillity, a promoter of the lawless excesses of the multitude,” and similar emphatic appellations—conferring upon this young patriot a diploma of honour little anticipated by them. His answers to these vituperations were charged with strong and conclusive logic, keen and withering sarcasm. This brought him into the political field, and so delighted were the people with the manner he handled the hirelings of the crown that they elected him to the colonial assembly. There he took a conspicuous part and became the uncompromising opposer of all measures that were not within the pale of the constitution or that were tinctured with oppression. So strongly was he in favour of liberal principles and rational liberty, that he gave his whole influence and vote in favour of the repeal of the law that compelled the people to support the clergy, by which the stipend of his father was reduced one half. Agreeably to the laws of primogeniture then in force, this was voting money out of his own pocket in order to impart greater freedom to the people at large. By his bold and independent course he became an object for the persecution of the creatures of the crown and an object of pride and admiration with the people. But his enemies found him a bramble full of the keenest thorns and were unmercifully scarified every time they approached him. His tongue, his pen, his logic and his sarcasm were as blighting as the sirocco of Sahara.
After the repeal of the stamp act a calm of the public mind ensued, but it was a calm of delusion such as precedes a tornado. The inquisitorial rack of the ministry was again put in motion; fresh impositions commenced and the fire of discontent was again kindled. The bill closing the port of Boston and authorizing the king’s officers to seize and send to England for trial those who should dare resist the royal authority, roused the indignation of the colonies that had before been rather passive. A general Congress was agreed upon to meet at Philadelphia, and Mr. Chase, with four others, was appointed a member from Maryland. They were instructed to join in “agreeing on a general plan of conduct operating on the commercial connexion of the colonies with the mother country for the relief of Boston and preservation of American liberty.” A committee of correspondence was also appointed, of which Mr. Chase was an active and efficient member.