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
command. The movement was to be slow, sometimes halting and apparently
falling back, in some respects insignificant, in all respects
desperate, but there was to be no permanent defeat and no compromise.
The espousal of Abolitionism by Mr. Chase was a remarkable
circumstance. He was not an enthusiast like Garrison and Lundy and
many other Anti-Slavery pioneers, but precisely the opposite.
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