by Walter Stahr
First published 2022
Walter Stahr presents Salmon P. Chase as the forgotten architect of Republican antislavery politics. The author argues that Chase laid essential groundwork for Lincoln's 1860 victory through two decades of party building that began in the early 1840s. Stahr shows how Chase earned his reputation as "the attorney general for runaway negroes" by repeatedly defending fugitive slaves in court. As Lincoln's Treasury Secretary, Chase raised billions to fund Union victory while pushing the president toward stronger positions on black rights. The book traces Chase's later appointment as Chief Justice, where Lincoln trusted him to handle the complex racial and economic questions of Reconstruction. Drawing from overlooked primary sources, Stahr rehabilitates a political figure typically remembered only as Lincoln's rival. The biography reveals Chase as central to nineteenth century struggles for racial justice, showing how his early antislavery organizing made possible both the Republican Party's emergence and Lincoln's eventual presidency.
Genres: biography, historical-fiction, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: United States
Period: 19th Century
832 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster