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| Salmon P. Chase (LC) |
On December 5-6, 2014, the Center for the Constitution at the
Georgetown University Law Center will host a lecture and symposium to commemorate the 150th
anniversary of Salmon P. Chase’s appointment as Chief Justice of the
United States. The Center’s inaugural Distinguished Lecture, “Freedom
National, Slavery Local: The Antislavery Constitutionalism of Salmon P.
Chase,” will be delivered on December 5 by
James Oakes, Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the
City University of New York. The lecture is co-sponsored of the Supreme Court Historical Society and is open to its members and the general public. (Details to follow, here and, next month, on the SCHS's website.) The colloquium, “Salmon P. Chase and the Republican Constitution,” is by invitation only and will be held on December 6. Its four sessions will address the following topics:
- Chase, The Antislavery Lawyer, covering his constitutional challenges to the Fugitive Slave Act in the In re Matilda and Jones v. Van Zandt cases;
- Chase, The Antislavery Political Organizer, covering his role in founding and developing the constitutional platforms of the Free soil, Liberty and Republican parties;
- Chase, The Antislavery Public Official, discussing his contributions as a U.S. Senator from Ohio, Governor of Ohio, and Treasury Secretary in Lincoln’s cabinet;
- Chase, The Reconstruction Chief Justice, discussing some of his decisions, such as Texas v. White and the Legal Tender Cases, as well as his dissenting vote in Bradwell v. Illinois and his role in presiding over the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.
