Ironically, what Chase was referring to was the right of states to hobble federal fugitive slave laws via habeas corpus, and specifically the case of a runaway slave named Anderson. Oh, and the speech was from Chase's reelection campaign of 1857, not 1854.
Abel P. Upshur listed the speech as occurring in 1854. What was interesting at all was that Chase believed (rightly so) that the states possessed powers superior to the federal government (the agent of the states).