sufficient quantity, notwithstanding the terrible drain of the
greatest of civil wars, as long as the funds held out. Everything
depended on the treasury. Failure there meant irretrievable disaster.
It would not answer to have any serious mistakes in that quarter, and
in fact no fatal mistakes were there made. In all other departments
there were failures and blunders, but the financial department met
every emergency and every requisition. Chase's financial policy it was
that carried the country majestically through the war, and that
afterwards paid the nation's debts.

There is a circumstance that has not been mentioned, as far as the
writer knows, by any of Mr. Chase's biographers, which seems to him to
be significant and worth referring to. During the Civil War, Walter
Bagehot was editor of the _Economist,_ the great English financial
journal. His opinion in financial matters was regarded as the highest
authority. It was accepted as infallible. He discussed the plans of
Mr. Chase with great elaborateness and great severity. He predicted
that they were all destined to failure, and proved this theoretically
to his own satisfaction and the satisfaction of many others. The
result showed that Mr. Chase was right all the time, and the great
English economist was wrong.

The entrance of such a man into the Abolitionist movement marked an
era in its history. It was the thing most needed. He gave it a leader
who, of all men then living, was most competent for leadership. From
that time he was its Moses.

The greatest service rendered to the Abolition cause by Salmon P.
Chase was in pushing it forward on political lines. There was a
contest for the mastery of the Government from the hour he took