About this item
Salmon P. Chase is best remembered as a rival of Lincoln's for the Republican nomination in 1860 - but there would not have been a national Republican Party, and Lincoln could not have won the presidency, were it not for the vital groundwork Chase laid over the previous two decades. Starting in the early 1840s, long before Lincoln was speaking out against slavery, Chase was forming and leading antislavery parties. He represented fugitive slaves so often in his law practice that he was known as the attorney general for runaway negroes, and he furthered his reputation as an outspoken federal senator and progressive governor of Ohio. Tapped by Lincoln to become Secretary of the Treasury, Chase would soon prove vital to the Civil War effort, raising the billions of dollars that allowed the Union to win the war, while also pressing the president to emancipate the country's slaves and recognize black rights.
About the Author
Walter Stahr was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Southern California. He studied at the Phillips Exeter Academy, Stanford University, the Kennedy School of Government, and Harvard Law School. For twenty-five years, he worked as a lawyer, both in Washington and the Far East, both in government and private practice. He was working as a lawyer while researching and writing his first book, a biography of John Jay, published in 2005. His second book, a biography of William Henry Seward, was published in 2012, and his third, on Edwin McMasters Stanton, was published in August 2017. Walter Stahr lives in Newport Beach, California, with his wife, Dr. Masami Miyauchi Stahr, who teaches mathematics at St. Margaret's Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano. His website is walterstahr.com.
