Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [442]
“To have done otherwise I should have been recreant to my convictions of duty to the Republican party and to the country,” Lincoln answered. “As to his talk about me, I do not mind that. Chase is, on the whole, a pretty good fellow and a very able man. His only trouble is that he has ‘the White House fever’ a little too bad, but I hope this may cure him and that he will be satisfied.”
Lincoln later told Senator Chandler that personally he “would rather have swallowed his buckhorn chair than to have nominated Chase,” but the decision was right for the country. “Probably no other man than Lincoln,” Nicolay wrote to Therena, “would have had, in this age of the world, the degree of magnanimity to thus forgive and exalt a rival who had so deeply and so unjustifiably intrigued against him. It is however only another most marked illustration of the greatness of the President.”
Chase got the official word from Kate when he arrived home that night. He immediately sat down to write the president. “I cannot sleep before I thank [you] for this mark of your confidence…. Be assured that I prize your confidence & good will more than nomination or office.”
On December 15, the Supreme Court was “overflowing with an immense throng of dignitaries of various degrees, ladies, congressmen, foreign ministers, and others who wished to view the simple but impressive ceremony of swearing in the chief judicial officer of the republic.” Kate Sprague and her sister, Nettie, were there, “gorgeously dressed,” according to Noah Brooks. Secretary Seward was also present, along with Nathaniel Banks, Ben Wade, Reverdy Johnson, and Charles Sumner, whose “handsome features plainly showed his inward glow of gratification.” At the usher’s solemn announcement, everyone stood as the robed justices entered the room. The senior justice, James W. Wayne, administered the oath, which Chase “read in a clear but tremulous voice.” When he finished, Chase “lifted his right hand, looked upward to the beautiful dome of the court-room, and with deep feeling added, ‘So help me God.’”
“I hope the President may have no occasion to regret his selection,” Gideon Welles confided in his diary, sharing Lincoln’s apprehension that Chase would “use the place for political advancement and thereby endanger confidence in the court.” Still, Lincoln believed the risk worth taking. He trusted that Chase would help secure the rights of the black man, for which he had fought throughout his career, a belief that outweighed concerns about Chase’s restless temperament.
Chase quickly justified Lincoln’s confidence in this regard. Within hours of Chase’s accession to the Court, John Rock, a black lawyer from Massachusetts, wrote a hopeful letter to Charles Sumner. Rock had been seeking to practice before the Supreme Court for over a year, but his efforts had been denied on the basis of his race. “We now have a great and good man for our Chief Justice, and with him I think my color will not be a bar to my admission,” he wrote. Sumner immediately contacted Chase, who was delighted to pursue the cause of opening the Court to its first black barrister.
Six weeks later, Sumner stood before the Supreme Court as Rock’s sponsor: “May it please the Court, I move that John S. Rock, a member of the Supreme Court of the State of Massachusetts, be admitted to practice as a member of this Court.” Then, with Chase’s assent, Rock stepped forward for the oath that would allow him to practice before the highest court in the land. “This event,” Harper’s Weekly observed, represented an “extraordinary reversal” of the decision in the Dred Scott case. Rock’s admission, Harper’s predicted, would “be regarded by the future historian as a remarkable indication of the revolution which is going on in the sentiment of a great people.”
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