Salmon P. Chase: Greenbacks, the $1 Bill Portrait, and Texas v. White

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Have you ever actually seen a $10,000 bill?

SPEAKER_2 (0:03)

I mean, I definitely haven't.

SPEAKER_1 (0:05)

Right.

SPEAKER_2 (0:05)

They're incredibly rare.

SPEAKER_1 (0:06)

Right. But if you're listening right now, try to just picture whose face might be on it, because most of us have never laid eyes on one.

SPEAKER_2 (0:13)

You'd assume it's a founding father, right? Or maybe a famous general.

SPEAKER_1 (0:16)

Exactly. But it's not. The face staring back at you belongs to a man who, well, he arguably financed the entire Union victory in the Civil War.

SPEAKER_2 (0:25)

Yeah, and helped found the Republican Party.

SPEAKER_1 (0:28)

Right. And he served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Oh, and he was so relentlessly ambitious that he literally slapped his own portrait on the very first one dollar bill. You know, just to boost his political brand.

SPEAKER_2 (0:41)

It's wild. We are looking at a historical figure who fundamentally engineered the modern United States. Yet he is, for some reason, largely forgotten by the general public today.

SPEAKER_1 (0:52)

And that is our mission for today's Deep Dive.

Welcome in, everyone. Today we are exploring the life of Salmon P. Chase.

SPEAKER_2 (0:59)

His resume alone is just, it's almost impossible to replicate.

SPEAKER_1 (1:03)

It really is. We're going to examine a guy defined by this dizzying contradiction. Because on one hand, he had this uncompromising visionary dedication to civil rights decades ahead of his time.

SPEAKER_2 (1:15)

But on the other hand, he harbored this insatiable, almost destructive ambition to become president of the United States.

SPEAKER_1 (1:23)

Okay, let's unpack this. Because looking at the notes we have on him, he is one of the only people in American history to serve in all three branches of the federal government, plus a massive state office. I mean, how rare is that?

SPEAKER_2 (1:35)

It is exceptionally rare. I mean, think about it. He was a US. Senator. He was the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

SPEAKER_1 (1:43)

And Governor of Ohio.

SPEAKER_2 (1:45)

Right. Achieving even one of those positions usually serves as the absolute capstone of a brilliant career. Holding all four, that suggests a level of drive and operational capability that is just unmatched in mid-19th century politics.

SPEAKER_1 (1:59)

But looking at his background, it's not like he started out with wealth or deep political connections.

I'm seeing a lot of severe early hardship in these sources. So how does he even end up in Ohio to begin with?

SPEAKER_2 (2:11)

Well, he was born in New Hampshire in 1808, but his father died when he was just nine years old.

SPEAKER_1 (2:15)

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_2 (2:16)

Yeah. Which left his mother trying to care for 10 children with very few resources. So the financial strain was just overwhelming.

SPEAKER_1 (2:24)

I can't even imagine.

SPEAKER_2 (2:25)

Right. So young Salmon was basically sent away to Ohio to live with his uncle Philander Chase.

His uncle was a pretty prominent Episcopal bishop out there.

SPEAKER_1 (2:34)

That's to be such a jarring transition for a kid. Losing your dad, leaving your siblings behind, and then being shipped off to the Western frontier. Because Ohio was still very much the rugged frontier back then.

SPEAKER_2 (2:46)

It was incredibly rugged. But he actually thrived academically under his uncle's strict discipline. He eventually went back east to graduate from Dartmouth College.

Okay.

SPEAKER_1 (2:55)

So he gets a solid education.

SPEAKER_2 (2:56)

Exactly. And after that, he moved to Washington, DC., where he studied law directly under the sitting US. Attorney General, William Wirt.

SPEAKER_1 (3:04)

That's quite the mentor.

SPEAKER_2 (3:05)

Yeah. It was a huge opportunity. So by 1829, he passes the bar and heads back to Ohio, specifically Cincinnati, to set up his legal practice.

SPEAKER_1 (3:14)

So let's talk about Cincinnati in the 1830s. If you were a young, ambitious lawyer trying to build a career, what kind of city are you walking into?

SPEAKER_2 (3:23)

You are walking into a total boom town, but it is deeply tethered to the south.

SPEAKER_1 (3:29)

Because of the river, right?

SPEAKER_2 (3:30)

Exactly. Cincinnati sits right on the Ohio River, looking directly across at Kentucky, which of course was a slave state. The city's entire economy, its banking, the riverboat trade, the massive pork packing industry, all of it relied on southern markets.

SPEAKER_1 (3:45)

So the business elite there must have been very protective of that relationship.

SPEAKER_2 (3:49)

Oh, completely. They had zero interest in antagonizing their southern trading partners over the issue of slavery.

SPEAKER_1 (3:54)

Which makes his next move so wild to me.

The sources show him taking this hard pivot into the abolitionist movement, but it wasn't just a political awakening, right? It was triggered by immense personal tragedy.