The Extraordinary Times is back after a brief festive hiatus, wishing readers a happy new year and looking forward to catching up with more fascinating folks in 2021. This week we welcome Walter Stahr. A lawyer and acclaimed historical biographer of John Jay, Edwin Stanton, and William H. Seward, Stahr is working on a new book about Salmon P. Chase, longtime resident of Cincinnati, Ohio. Stahr is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, and practiced law for many years, both in the United States and Asia. He lives with his wife in Southern California.
* How have you been keeping this past year? In some sense my life has not changed much. I do most of my work at home, at my kitchen table. But I have missed, a lot, being able to go to libraries to look at sources. There are some sources that are available online, but others, such as the microfilm edition of Chase’s papers, are available only at a few libraries. Although small local libraries have been open, in many places, large research libraries have not. * What inspired your career change from practicing law to writing historical biography? I was reading an American history book one evening in our apartment in Hong Kong, and saying to myself that even I could write a better book. And then there was a response, almost as if it were coming from a speaker in the ceiling: “if you think that, Stahr, do it; write a book.” I started reading with a view to finding a suitable subject for a biography, and landed upon John Jay, who at that point had not been the subject of a full-length biography since the 1930s. * Your latest work-in-progress is a biography of Supreme Court Chief Justice and Secretary Treasury Salmon P. Chase. How did Ohio propel Chase to the national stage? In the winter of 1849-50, there was an almost even split in the Ohio legislature between Whig and Democratic members. The tiny Free Soil party, of which Chase was a leader, held the “balance of power.” A deal was worked out; in return for Free Soil support for Democratic candidates to take control of the legislature, Democrats would give their votes to Chase as the candidate for federal senator. (In those days senators were selected by legislatures not popular elections.) More generally, although he was born in New Hampshire, Ohio was Chase’s home base; he moved to Cincinnati in his early twenties and never changed his residence, although he spent much of the latter part of his life in Washington. * Why did you choose Chase? At first I was not very enthused about Chase: I viewed him as a rival of my man Seward, not to mention Lincoln. But as I researched Chase, I realized that he was incredibly important in turning antislavery from a mere moral movement—sort of an eccentric fringe movement—into a powerful political party. Lincoln could never have been elected president, in 1860, without the groundwork that Chase and others did in creating the Liberty party, then the Free Soil party, then the Republican Party. Chase was also what we would call a public interest lawyer, representing blacks accused of being fugitive slaves, and Chase was in favor of black voting, long before the Civil War. * Is there a pattern or connecting thread to your choice of biographical subjects? So far, at least, all of my subjects have been lawyers, and all have been at the “second tier” of American leadership. They were not presidents, but they were as close to the presidency as one can get without being president. Lincoln did not rely upon Chase, for example, just to manage the federal finances. No: Chase advised Lincoln on politics, military matters, and especially on racial issues. Presidents, in those days, did not have huge White House staffs; so they had to rely more on their cabinet officers. But Lincoln relied even more heavily than usual on Seward, Chase and Stanton, and I think that tells us important things about Lincoln and about each of them. * Tell readers what brought you to Carlisle, Ohio, not long ago? In my Edwin Stanton book there is a brief mention of a political rally in 1868 in Carlisle, Ohio, that attracted 20,000 people. Someone in Carlisle read that and could not believe it; he thought there had NEVER been 20,000 people in Carlisle. We corresponded a bit by email, and then he and others worked to secure an Ohio history plaque to commemorate the rally, and the railroads that allowed people to get to the rally. They invited me to come to say a few words when the plaque was unveiled, which I happily did in October 2019. *** For more on Walter Stahr, visit his website.
2 Comments
1/8/2021 02:18:56 pm
Very interesting..... made me want to know more about the author and purchase the book for my sons who are attorneys....
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Matthew Smith
1/11/2021 11:03:31 am
Thanks Karen! Just checked out Stahr's biography of John Jay also. Looking forward to reading it: a great writer!
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AuthorMatthew Smith, PhD (History). Public Programs at Miami University Regionals. Historian of Appalachia, the Ohio Valley, & the early American republic. Archives
February 2024
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