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in bringing about the result; and the arrangement, first made between Colonel Morse and Dr. Townshend, and afterward between both of them and the Democrats, was faithfully carried out by all the parties to it. It had no reference to the admission of Pugh and Pierce, however, for that had been determined before the coalition was formed.

Mr. Chase was elected on the 22d of February, 1849, on the third ballot. He received the vote of every Old-line Democrat, and of Morse and Townshend.

His election was of course deeply exasperating to the Whigs throughout the State, and the passions then excited no doubt greatly affected his political fortunes in his after-life. They made the most virulent charges of corruption and of bargain and sale; all of them founded upon the facts above written. The admission of Pugh and Pierce was peculiarly and especially irritating; and of all the circumstances preliminary to the election was the particular one upon which the most serious imputations were cast; but the subsequent political action of the people of Hamilton County and of the State at large, was a complete vindication of the Democrats, both Old-line and Independent, who took part in these transactions. The leaders in the Townshend and Morse coalition were afterward honored by the people in various emphatic ways. Dr. Townshend was in 1850 elected to the Constitutional Convention of Ohio; afterward to the Congress of the United States, and now (1874) is a professor in the Agricultural College of Ohio. Colonel Morse was reëlected to the Legislature, and was in 1850 made Speaker of the House of Representatives-a special and distinguished mark, on the part of the people of the State, of their approval of his action in 1849. George E. Pugh was elected to the Legislature a second time; then Attorney-General of the State, and then Senator of the United States. Stanley Matthews, Alexander Long, Rufus P. Spalding, and others (in the Legislature and out of it), who were connected with the "Free-Soil firm of Morse and Townshend "-as the coalition was familiarly called in the party slang of the times-have since been the recipients of public favor.

Very early in his public career, Mr. Chase had distinctly announced his purpose to subordinate all other subjects of

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political action to the paramount one of detaching the Federal Government from any and all responsibility for human slavery. He had repeatedly declared his settled purpose to act with either of the great parties which should take this ground. The position of the Old-line Democracy of Ohio in 1849 was, in profession at least, nearly if not wholly up to the standards of the Liberty men. It seemed entirely probable that they might come into complete accord with the Independent Democrats; and upon this conviction Mr. Chase declared his intention to act with them in State politics, so long as they maintained that position, and did so in the fall elections of 1849, 1850 and 1851.

"I see," said Mr. Chase, in a letter to Colonel Morse, under date of Washington, March 14, 1849-"I see that the Whig papers are pouring out their denunciations upon me. I could not prevent them if I would. But if the Free-Soilers had united with the Whigs in electing their officers, the tone of these Whig papers would be far different. We must be content to endure. We have done no wrong in endeavoring to settle, in conformity to justice, the vexed questions which grew out of the apportionment law, or by electing fit men-though Democrats not of our organization-to office, or by receiving the aid of such Democrats in the repeal of the 'black laws' and the election of free Democrats to office. Beyond this, we have not meddled with the questions between the old parties. We leave those questions to be considered by the people, in the light of the principles laid down in our platform, and to the action of a future Legislature. For my own part, I am conscious of nothing which justifies this abuse of me; nor shall I retaliate it. In the position to which I have been called, it will be my aim to deserve the confidence of the people of Ohio and of the entire Northwest, by striving to bring the national Government back to the principles of the Ordinance of 1787, and by promoting measures calculated to advance their interests and develop the resources of their States." "Thanks for your cordial congratulations," he wrote to his friend Cleveland, about the same time. "I rejoice to know that my election gives such universal satisfaction to those who fight the battles of freedom so bravely and with such inflexible determination in the ranks of the Liberty party.

I shall strive to deserve the generous confidence which they tender to me in advance, though I cannot hope to realize the expectations of friends so partial as yourself. I lack experience and that prompt sagacity which is a substitute for experience, and often so sufficient a substitute. But I shall try to do right. I hope that I may have the strength and resolution necessary to do right in the midst of circumstances the most menacing, or most persuasive to the opposite course! I already see that I will require much of both, in matters quite independent of slavery questions."

Whether coalitions such as that by which Mr. Chase was first elected to the American Senate are warranted by the maxims of a strict political morality, is a question which every reader will determine for himself. But wherever parlia mentary government exists, they have happened more or less frequently, and will continue to happen to the end of time. Those political philosophers who object to them, must devise some improvement upon the system by which they can be made impossible.

-Long after the discussion of the events attending upon the election of Mr. Chase had ceased; after every one of them had been laid bare, and exhibited in the worst possible view of which party rancor was capable, the people of Ohio rendered a final verdict upon the whole matter by twice electing Mr. Chase to be their chief magistrate, and a second time-by the overwhelming vote of their delegates-choosing him to be a representative of their State in the Senate of the United States. Subjoined is a brief history of the repeal of the black laws of Ohio, referred to in the preceding account of the circumstances attending upon the first election of Mr. Chase to the United States Senate:

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In the canvass that preceded the fall election of 1848 in Ohio, the repeal of the law which excluded colored people from the witness-box had been favored by a considerable number of Whigs and opposed by a large majority of the Democrats. Free-Soilers had demanded the repeal of all laws making distinctions on account of color. When the Legislature met at Columbus in December, it was soon ascertained that the Free-Soil members held the balance of power, and it naturally became an

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object with both the other parties to secure their adhesion. But these members declared their determination to unite with no party which would not vote for the repeal of the black laws, as the laws making distinctions on account of color were commonly called. Mr. Chase was in Columbus at this time, in professional attendance upon the courts, and was much consulted by the Free-Soil members and especially by those who had been elected without aid from either of the old parties.

His advice was against coöperation with any party except upon condition of the repeal of the black laws, and this advice was the more readily adopted as it was in complete unison with the views of the members to whom it was given.

The laws called the black laws required colored people to give bonds for good behavior as a condition of residence; excluded them from the schools; denied them the right of testifying in the courts when a white man was party on either side; and subjected them to other unjust and degrading disabilities. Mr. Chase had been an open and consistent opponent of all this injustice for years, and was ready to take advantage of a condition of things which offered an opportunity of incorporating his views into the legislation of the State. He, therefore, thinking "that the best day was well employed in such a work," devoted an entire Sunday in January, 1849, to the preparation of such a bill as he thought would be least likely to excite violent hostility among the members of the Legislature, and at the same time accomplish the objects of the Free-Soilers. The first section of the bill provided for separate schools for colored children in localities where the local authorities should determine their admission to the ordinary schools inexpedient; and for the care and direction of these separate schools, wherever they might be established, by trustees elected by the colored people themselves; and the concluding section provided for the repeal of all laws making distinctions on account of color. This bill went so far beyond any reform in this respect that had ever been thought possible, except after many years of arduous labor, that hardly any one believed it at all likely to pass. But Mr. Chase was confident and the Free-Soil members were resolute. They adopted his bill, and consulted with other members. As observed in the body of this chapter, the Ohio Democrats

were pretty strongly imbued, at this time, with antislavery sentiments. They had recently witnessed the election by the Whigs of a Southern slaveholder over their Northern Democratic candidate, and free from the embarrassment of a national administration or a pending national political contest, were predisposed to a favorable consideration of the Free-Soil proposition. This predisposition was largely due also to their desire to have the coöperation of the Free-Soil members in the legislative appointments and elections about to be made. At any rate, they took the bill into consideration and agreed to support it.

Thereupon it was introduced into the House of Representatives by Colonel John F. Morse, and was carried by a large majority; the Whigs following, for the most part, the lead of the Democrats; and both parties voting for it with a considerable degree of unanimity. It was then sent to the Senate, where it could doubtless have been passed at once, but for a motion by a Whig Senator to refer it to a committee. The motion prevailed; the bill was referred; and was reported with amendments which excepted from the repeal the laws which denied to the colored people the right to sit on juries, and the right to poor-house relief. These amendments were adopted by decided votes in the Senate, and concurred in by the House, after considerable opposition from leading Democrats—and the bill thus amended, became a law.

Prompt action in a favorable conjuncture of circumstances, thus secured the enactment by decisive majorities in both Houses, of a humane and beneficent law, which, under almost any other circumstances, would have been rejected by majorities equally decisive. It was one of those acts in advance of the sentiments and yet in accordance with the moral convictions of the people, which required but tact and courage to be accomplished, but once accomplished, are not likely to be reversed. It relieved the colored people from all their most onerous disabilities; gave them entrance into the schools, and awakened great hopes for the future. Laws were afterward enacted in derogation of the right of suffrage allowed by the constitution to colored persons, half and more than one-half white, but the advantages gained to them by the act of 1849 were never lost.

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