Six weeks prior to the Convention Mr.August Belmont in a private letter advised him that the leading Democrats of New York were favorable to his nomination, and urged upon him that with the settlement of the slavery question, the issue which separated him from the Democratic party had disappeared.

Judge Chase replied that the slavery question had indeed been settled, but that in the question of Reconstruction it had a successor which partook largely of the same nature.

He had been a party to the pledge of freedom for the enfranchised race, and the fulfillment of that pledge required, in his judgment, "the assurance of the right of suffrage to those whom the Constitution has made freemen and citizens." Not long after this correspondence the Chief Justice caused a formal summary of his political views to be published, with the evident purpose of gaining the good will of the "American Democracy." The summary touched lightly on most of the controversial political questions, and contained nothing to which the Democrats would not have readily assented except the declaration for universal suffrage.

To this policy all Democratic acts and expressions had been uncompromisingly hostile, and the sentiment of the party might not easily be brought to accept a change which was at once so radical and so repugnant to its temper and its training.

Judge Chase hoped to induce its acquiescence and believed that such an advance might open the way to success.