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As an aside, it would be ludicrous to assume that Chase would rule otherwise in Texas v White, doing so would have made him complicit in the trashing of the Constitution. Lincoln once said, 'The South has violated the Constitution to break up the Union; I am ready to violate it to preserve the Union; and between you and me, Chase, before we get through, this Constitution is going to have a tough time.'

Also, Chase held that Texas had never left - if true then the acts of the state were legitimate and the decision re: the bonds wrong. Only by holding that Texas was not a state would his decision have merit. Justice Grier, who authored the Prize Cases dissented in TvW (5-3), holding that Texas was not a state in the union.

As another aside, I remember reading where someone asserted that President Davis did not want to be tried. He did, as documented by Rev. J. William Jones (author of Personal reminiscences, anecdotes, and letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee and other works):

'O that they had dared give me [Davis] the trial I so much coveted, and for which I so earnestly begged, in order that I might have opportunity to vindicate my people and their cause before the world and at the bar of history! They knew that I would have been triumphantly acquitted, and our people purged of all taint of treason, and they never dared to bring my case to trial."'

Chase told Stanton, 'If you bring these leaders to trial [Davis & Benjamin], it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is not rebellion', and that Davis capture was a mistake, and his 'trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason.'

As an aside, it would be ludicrous to assume that Chase would rule otherwise in Texas v White, doing so would have made him complicit in the trashing of the Constitution.

And the four associate justice who agreed with him? What was their excuse?

But that's not what Chase said. His position was that trying and convicting Davis and the other leaders of the rebellion would be a violation of their 5th Amendment protections. Since the 14th Amendment prevented the leaders of the office from holding office again, Chief Justice Chase believed that trial and conviction for treason would mean that they would be punished again for the same crime. You are right that Davis wanted a trial, but when the Chief Justice made his position clear Davis's lawyers pushed for a dismissal. They knew, even if Davis did not, that a trial would mean conviction. No other outcome would have been possible.