Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [76]
“What is a slave?” he asked. “A slave is a person held, as property, by legalized force, against natural right…. The very moment a slave passes beyond the jurisdiction of the state, in which he is held as such, he ceases to be a slave; not because any law or regulation of the state which he enters confers freedom upon him, but because he continues to be a man and leaves behind him the law of force, which made him a slave.” Chase depicted slavery as “a creature of state law” and not a national institution. He argued that any slave state created after 1787, the year the Northwest Ordinance became law, existed in violation of the Constitution and the wishes of the founding fathers.
As most observers expected, the Cincinnati court refused to accept Chase’s argument. Van Zandt was found guilty. As Chase left the courtroom, according to Harriet Beecher Stowe, then a Cincinnati resident, one of the judges reflected on the unpopularity of professed abolitionists: “There goes a young man who has ruined himself to-day.”
Far from ruining his prospects, the Van Zandt case added considerable luster to Chase’s national reputation. Appealing the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, Chase enlisted Seward’s help as co-counsel. The case moved slowly through the docket, affording the two men time to craft their written arguments. Chase presented the constitutional arguments, while Seward dealt with the technical ones. Though the Southern-dominated court wasted little time in affirming the lower court’s ruling, the constitutional arguments Chase outlined became pillars of antislavery party doctrine.
Chase acknowledged that “poor old Van Zandt” was never able to recover from the loss and the damages inflicted upon him. Still, he believed that “even though my poor old client be sacrificed, the great cause of humanity will be a gainer.” He had his 108-page argument reprinted in pamphlet form for wide distribution, and was delighted with the positive response it provoked. Antislavery activist Charles Sumner wrote from Massachusetts that “the question under the Ordinance of 1787 was novel” and might well “rally a political movement.” President John Quincy Adams’s son, Charles Francis, extolled Chase, as did New Hampshire’s Senator John Hale. Nothing gave him more satisfaction, than the praise he received from Seward, who expressed fervent hope that the “chaste and beautiful eloquence” of Chase’s brief would be forever “preserved for the benefit of the cause of Freedom and for [Chase’s] own fame.” The fact that the case brought a personal and intellectual contact with Seward, Chase told abolitionist Lewis Tappan, proved “one of the gratifications, and one of the greatest too,” of all his efforts.
Politicians were not alone in recognizing Chase’s commitment. In gratitude for public service “in behalf of the oppressed” and his “eloquent advocacy of the rights of man,” the black pastor of the Baker Street Church collected donations from his parishioners. In an emotional ceremony on May 6, 1845, attended by a large black congregation, Chase was honored with a beautifully engraved sterling silver pitcher. Presenting the gift on behalf of “the Colored People of Cincinnati,” the Reverend A. J. Gordon told the enthusiastic gathering that “whenever the friendless objects of slaveholding cupidity” struggled to find freedom, they found in Chase “a firm, zealous and devoted friend.” He assured Chase that his deeds on behalf of fugitive slaves and the black race would be “engraven on the tablets of our hearts…as long as memory retains her seat.” Reverend Gordon avowed that when Chase was finally “called from