"As a single volume this work is overwhelmingly impressive. Its meticulous scholarship and its intellectual breadth are stunning. Chase's importance, his quotability, his human social outlook, his many perceptive comments, and all the editors' notes make this work a highly desirable volume for 19th-century historians. Of all the publications of presidents' and politicans' papers, volume I of the Chase Papers is in a class by itself and is the most useful first volume of any similar collection."--The North Carolina Historical Review

Salmon P. Chase is usually remembered for his service as Treasury secretary during the Civil War. Earlier, he had attracted national attention as an antislavery attorney and politician and was twice elected U.S. senator from Ohio and served two terms as governor. For the final volume of this series, John Niven has chosen 215 significant letters that shed light on the last phase of Chase's life, the eight and one half years that he presided over the United States Supreme Court as chief justice.

During this period, Chase and the Court grappled with an array of issues that redefined...