Or could it be that Chase was misquoted or the quote attributed to him in error?
Gotta find that book by Burke Davis.
Found this bio online of Chase. No mention of the quote/opinion that the neo-rebs say is in this book by Burke Davis.
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/B/spchase/chase04.htm
Walt
I have it. It's there. Too bad. Empahsis mine:
The Prisioner / 203Typo's mine. Does that help?
But there was still a clamor for the execution of Davis. Speaker
of the House of Representatives Schuyler Colfax (who was soon to
be exposed as a grafter) told the House that if justice were done,
Davis would be "hanging between heaven and earth as not fit for
either."
But ex-President Franklin Pierce, who was corresponding
with Varina, assured her that her husband would not be tried, since
the government's case rested upon "wicked fabrications from the
perjured lips of the lowest on earth."
Pierce referred to a bizarre "professional perjurer" by the name
of Charles A. Dunham, who, under the alias Sanford Conover, of-
204 / The Prisoner
fered in return for a handsome fee to produce witnesses who
would swear that Davis had plotted with them to have Lincoln
murdered. Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, who was as gullible
as he was vindictive, accepted Conover's tales, and for some weeks
hoodlums and drifters were smuggled into Washington and re-
hearsed in false testimony by Conover. But their unlikely tales were
so transparently untrue that the Bureau of Military Justice exposed
them.
One witness, William Campbell (actually Joseph A. Hoare, a
New York "gas-fixer") gave away the scheme. "This is all false," he
said. "I must make a clean breast of it; I can't stand it any longer."
Campbell testified that Judge Holt, anxious for proof of Davis's
guilt after payment of the $100,000 reward, asked for any testimony
that might convict him: "Conover wrote out the evidence," Camp-
bell said, "and I learned it by heart." He was paid $625, of which
Holt had given him $500. Another "witness," Dr. James B. Merritt,
was paid $6,000.
After Campbell had confessed, Conover fled but was captured
and imprisoned. Only then was the fanatic Holt forced to abandon
his effort to send Davis to the gallows.
From the moment of Conover's exposure, Davis was no longer
in danger of prosecution for conspiracy in Lincoln's death but
Edwin Stanton, though he ceased to fill the newspapers with insinua-
tions, made no public acknowledgment of defeat, and defendants
were left in ignorance as to the status of the charges against them.
The Davis case became more vexing to Secretary Stanton and
the Radicals in other ways. The trunk full of personal and official
letters left at the David Yulee plantation in Florida by Captain dark
had arrived in Washington, where War Department officials scanned
every sheet without finding evidence to incriminate the Confederate
President. During the summer's heat, while Stanton and the Cabinet
still debated as to how the case should be tried. Chief Justice Salmon
P. Chase urged Stanton to forget the problem: "If you bring these
leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution,
secession is not rebellion." He added that it was absurd to try to
prove in court that Davis had been the chief of an armed uprising,
since that had been common knowledge. "Lincoln wanted Jefferson
Davis to escape," Chase said. "And he was right. His capture was
a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of
treason. Secession is settled. Let it stay settled."Burke Davis, The Long Surrender, New York: Random House, 1985, pp. 203-204.
"Mr. Epperson provided some information concerning the cites used by Davis in his book The Long Surrender. The issue was the quote attributed to CJ Chase to the effect that "secession is not rebellion...."
I looked at the 1900 VBA article and it, so far as I can tell, does not mention that quote. So where it came from remains a mystery.
But, I am not sure I would agree that the sentiment (secession is not rebellion) would not be that of Chase. He, IMO, carefully distinguished betwen secession and "levying war." Secession was not the same thing as levying war. I am not sure when he formulated his view that the acts of secession were null and void (the famous "sentence" of Tx. vs. White), but assuming he had that view when the quote was made (if it was made), the quote is understandable. If secession is Constitutionally impossible, then it would be of no effect and bringing criminal charges based on that alone would be problematic.
My opinion is, I think, aided by Chase's letter to Greeley condemning an editorial which, IIRC, argued that treason had not been committed or that, if committed, it should not be punished. Chase writes to the effect "Where have you been? Can it be denied that Confederates levied war against the US and that they had a duty of allegiance to the US? Of course not! Thus, the Constitutional requirements for treason have been met--not by the attempted secession, but from the war which followed."
IOW, Chase seemed to separate the act of secession from the acts of war which followed. The latter he believed to be clearly treason, the former, he thought to be not quite so clear. I would welcome any comments on my reading of the events and Chase's view of the law. I am not interested in the usual personal attacks from the usual suspect."
Walt