that Chase would accept and that "he requested me to tell you/ that he receives your intention to nominate him to a seat on the Supreme Judicial Bench of the United States with the utmost gratitude.’ He added "The President shall never have reason to regret the nomination", and I believe it. He agrees to be in Philadelphia by the first Monday in next month. Thus, Sir, you see what you have done. You have made an old veteran very proud and happy, and one not very young
to approach the station you have assigned him with fear and trembling; for who hereafter may hope to escape without a wound, whilst there are men to be found who could aim poisoned arrows at yourself?" A week later, McHenry wrote that Chase "is extremely pleased with his appointment, and I have strong hopes that its good effects as it respects the public will extend beyond the judicial department. ... I pray you to receive him kindly and cordially."[1] In view of the subsequent career of Chase on the Bench and the fact that by his arbitrary actions he became the storm center for the Anti-Federalist attack on the Federal Judiciary, it must be admitted that McHenry's hopes and predilections were unjustified, and that Chase's confidence that "the President shall never have reason to regret the nomination" was disproved by events. There were Federalists in Washington's own circle who gravely doubted the wisdom of the nomination. "I have but an unworthy opinion of him (Chase)," wrote Oliver Wolcott; William Plumer wrote that the appointments of Cushing and Chase "do not encrease the respectability and dignity of the Judiciary"; and Iredell wrote that: "I have no personal acquaintance with Mr. Chase, but am not impressed with a very favorable opinion of his moral character, whatever his
- ↑ Washington Papers M88, letters of McHenry, Jan. 24, 81» 1706.
