Personal Recollections of Chief-Justice Chase. retirement, his appointment to St. Petersburgh, and the appointment of Mr. Stanton as his successor, with President Lincoln and Mr. Cameron, and I called on Mr. Stanton to ascertain whether he would accept the post of Secretary of War if tendered to him. Ultimately, when, as I supposed, the matter was fully understood, Mr. Lincoln addressed a note to Mr. Cameron, tendering the mis sion to St. Petersburgh, and signifying his willingness to accept his resignation. The note was brief, and seemed curt. But Mr. Lincoln, upon his attention being drawn to its tenor, said he intended to make it every thing that it should be, and another note was substituted, expressing what he declared to be his real sentiments. Mr. Cameron was not removed. He resigned because, as he stated at the time, he preferred the mission to the secretaryship, and he did recommend the appointment of Mr. Stanton as his successor." The Chief Justice has not stated the very friendly part that he took in this matter. Mr. Lincoln's letter to Mr. Cameron, offering him the mission to Russia, was deemed curt and unfriendly by the latter, and he so expressed himself to Mr. Chase, whereupon Mr. Chase called upon the President, and suggested that it was not the sort of note that should be addressed to the retiring Secretary of War. "Well, then," said the President, " write what you think proper, and I will sign it." Mr. Chase thereupon wrote a most cordial letter to Mr. Cameron. Chief Justice Chase was a very domestic man, and, although he married and buried three wives before he was forty-five, he never forgot the one romantic love of his early manhood. When he was a poor and unknown teacher in Washington, he had among his pupils the sons of William Wirt, the Attorney-General of the United States. Mr. Wirt, who had arisen from poverty and obscurity to a splendid position in public and private life, was attracted by the talents
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of the young New England boy. He invited him to study law under him, and made him a welcome guest at his house. Miss Wirt's particular friend was Elizabeth Cabell of Richmond, Va., who was a frequent visitor at the home of the Wirts in Washington. Mr. Chase met her and lost his heart. Miss Cabell accepted him as an escort to parties, the theatres, receptions, dinners, etc., and the young man wrote sentimental verses to the fair Virginia girl, but when he offered her his heart, she disdained to marry a poor school teacher. So she became the wife of a high-born Virginian, and lived and died in provincial obscurity, while young Chase went to Cincinnati, and started on a career which made him one of the foremost men of his time. Had he been successful in his first love, the career of Salmon P. Chase might have been entirely changed, and the future destiny of this country might have been affected, in a measure, by the result of this unsuccessful love affair of an obscure Yankee school teacher. Had he married Miss Cabell, he would either have remained in Washington, or settled in Richmond, and become a pro-slavery Democrat, but going West at that time, while smarting under a disappointment inflicted by one of the proud patricians of the South, he threw himself heart and mind into the anti-slavery move ment, and, becoming one of its most promi nent leaders, by his creative genius he paved the way for the formation of the Republican party in 1856. Although Chief- Justice Chase married early, he did not marry late, for, after the death of his third wife, before he was fortyfive, he did not marry again. But, being a man of very strong affection, he became deeply interested in one of the handsomest women of Washington, Miss Constance Kinney. He was more than three-score at this time, but, whenever Miss Kinney at tended one of Miss Chase's afternoon recep tions, the Chief Justice was sure to be present, throwing aside his books or work
