Lucien Bonaparte Chase

Lucien Bonaparte Chase (December 5, 1817 – December 4, 1864) was an American politician, lawyer, author, and a member of the United States House of Representatives for Tennessee’s 9th congressional district. He served two terms in Congress as a Democrat during a formative period in the nation’s political history, participating in the legislative process and representing the interests of his Tennessee constituents.

Chase was born in Derby Line, Orleans County, Vermont, on December 5, 1817, the son of Jacob and Hannah W. Chase. He spent his early years in New England, where he received his initial education. The rural, border-town environment of Derby Line, situated along the Canadian frontier, formed the backdrop of his youth before he sought opportunities in the expanding western and southern regions of the United States.

Around 1838, Chase moved from Vermont to Dover, Tennessee. There he supported himself by teaching school while pursuing the study of law, a common path to the legal profession in the nineteenth century. After completing his legal studies, he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law in Charlotte, Tennessee, in Dickson County. Seeking a broader practice and greater professional opportunities, he later moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, where he resumed and expanded his legal career, establishing himself sufficiently in local affairs to enter public life.

Elected as a member of the Democratic Party to the Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth Congresses, Chase represented Tennessee’s 9th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1845, to March 3, 1849. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history marked by debates over territorial expansion, the Mexican-American War, and the intensifying national discussion over slavery and sectional balance. As a Democratic representative from Tennessee, he contributed to the legislative process and participated in the democratic governance of the country, advocating for the interests and concerns of his district. After two terms, he declined to be a candidate for re-election in 1848.

Following his departure from Congress, Chase moved to New York City in 1849, where he again resumed the practice of law. In New York, he continued his professional work at the bar and also turned to writing on political and social issues. He authored “History of the Polk Administration” (1850), a contemporary examination and defense of the presidency of James K. Polk, under whom many of the major events of his own congressional tenure had occurred. He later wrote “English Serfdom and American Slavery; or, Ourselves—As Others See Us” (1854), a work that engaged with transatlantic views of slavery and social conditions, reflecting the contentious public discourse of the decade preceding the Civil War.

In his later years, Chase maintained his ties to both his adopted and native regions, dividing his life between his legal and literary pursuits in New York and his connections to Vermont. He died in Derby Line, Vermont, on December 4, 1864, one day short of his forty-seventh birthday (age 46 years, 365 days). Lucien Bonaparte Chase was interred in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, a prominent burial place for many notable nineteenth-century Americans.