Chase, Salmon Portland

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Chase, Salmon Portland (1808–73) Chief justice of the US Supreme Court (1864–73). Known as a defender of fugitive slaves, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him chief justice. Chase reorganized the federal courts, and presided over the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson (1868). His decision in the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) became a standard judgement on the restrictive clause of the 14th Amendment.

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