STANTOK EDWIN" M. 



645 



of State for the Colonies ; in 1834-'35, under 

 Lord Melbourne, Under-Secretary for the Home 

 Department. Late in 1835 he was made Pa- 

 tronage Secretary of the Treasury, and con- 

 tinued in this office till 1841, when he was 

 promoted to be Paymaster-General of the 

 Forces, but went out with the ministry three 

 months later. In 1846, in Lord John Eus- 

 selFs Cabinet, Mr. Stanley was made Under- 

 secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In 

 1852 and again from 1853 to 1855 he was Pay- 

 master of the Forces and vice-president of the 

 Board of Trade, and in 1855 he became presi- 

 dent of the Board of Trade, which position he 

 held for three years. In September, 1860, he 

 was Paymaster- General in Lord Palmerston's 

 administration, with a seat in the Cabinet, 

 and continued in that office under Earl Rus- 

 sell's second administration, retiring from offi- 

 cial life in 1866. He was offered a seat in the 

 Cabinet by Mr. Gladstone in December, 1868, 

 but declined it on account of failing health. 

 He was a man of great shrewdness and good 

 sense, and thoroughly familiar with the politi- 

 cal movements and measures of the last hun- 

 dred years. In private life he was a man of 

 genial temper, ready wit, and great kindliness 

 of heart. 



STANTON, EDWIN M., LL. D., an American 

 statesman, and Cabinet officer, born in Steu- 

 benville, Ohio, December 19, 1814; died in 

 Washington, D. 0., December 24, 1869. At 

 the age of thirteen he became a clerk in a 

 book-store in Steubenville, and in 1831 a stu- 

 dent in Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, where 

 he graduated in 1833. ' After a few months 

 more as a bookseller's clerk at Columbus, he 

 commenced the study of law early in 1834 in 

 the office of his guardian, Daniel S. Collins, in 

 Steubenville, and subsequently in the office 

 of Benjamin Tappan, an eminent jurist of 

 Ohio. In 1836 he was admitted to the bar 

 and commenced practice at Cadiz, in Harrison 

 County, where he was very soon elected coun- 

 ty prosecuting attorney. He speedily attained 

 to a large practice, especially in the Circuit 

 Courts. In 1839 he removed to Steubenville, 

 and was a partner for some years of his old 

 preceptor, Judge Tappan. In 1842 he was 

 elected reporter of the decisions of the Su- 

 preme Court of Ohio, and prepared volumes xi., 

 xii., and xiii., of the Ohio State Reports. He 

 had by this time attained a very high position 

 at the Ohio bar, and was regarded as the 

 ablest lawyer of the State in all questions of 

 land-titles and commercial law. In 1847, 

 he formed a .partnership with Charles Shaler 

 and Theodore Umbstratter, of Pittsburg, 

 Pa., and, though retaining an office in Steu- 

 benville, removed with his family to Pitts- 

 burg. The firm devoted their attention 

 almost entirely to civil causes of the highest 

 character in the higher courts of Pennsyl- 

 vania, and in the United States District, Circuit, 

 and Supreme Courts. In all the important cases 

 Mr. Stanton's services were secured on the one 



side or the other. lie was possessed of great 

 powers of application, and a remarkable in- 

 tuition. His business before the Supreme Court 

 of the United States became so large that in 1857 

 he was compelled to remove to Washington to 

 attend to it. In 1858, he was sent by the Gov- 

 ernment to California, to attend to some land 

 cases of importance. He was successful in 

 these, and returned in 1859, and was em- 

 ployed as one of the counsel in the Many 

 and Me Cormick reaper case, where for 

 the first time he met Mr. Lincoln, who was 

 associated with him in the case. In Decem- 

 ber, 1860, while still engaged in a later stage 

 of this same case, he was nominated by Mr. 

 Buchanan Attorney-General, as the successor 

 of Judge Black. He accepted the appoint- 

 ment, though aware of its difficulties. Gen- 

 eral Cass, Howell Cobb, and John B.Floyd, 

 had resigned, the two latter with the pur- 

 pose of going into the secession movement; 

 Judge Black, now Secretary of State,. and Mr. 

 Thomas, of Maryland, Judge Holt, General 

 Dix, and Mr. Stanton, were the members of the 

 Cabinet, and all Democrats. On the 4th of 

 March, 1861, Mr. Stanton retired from the Cabi- 

 net, and resumed the practice of his profession, 

 but manifested a deep interest in the national 

 cause. On the llth of January, 1862, on the 

 resignation of Mr. Cameron, Mr. Stanton was 

 nominated by President Lincoln as Secretary of 

 War. He was confirmed by the Senate on the 

 13th of January, and immediately entered 

 upon his duties. The position was one of 

 responsibility and overwhelming labor. Dur- 

 ing the greater part of the war, he had 

 two or three assistant secretaries, men chosen 

 for their executive ability and energy, as well 

 as for other good qualities, but one after 

 another they broke down in attempting to 

 keep up with their chief. He never seemed 

 to know the need of rest, and for months, 

 we might almost say years, he slept at the 

 office, working on till two or three o'clock 

 in the morning, and rising before the sun to 

 renew his toil. The burden of the war 

 was upon him, and manfully and skilfully did 

 he sustain it. That some of his measures were 

 not judicious, that amid the pressure of 

 care and anxiety he was at times brusque, 

 harsh, and overbearing," must be admitted. 

 Even his errors of judgment were prompted 

 by his intense zeal for the national cause, 

 and his anxiety to have the war brought 

 to a successful close. That his course should 

 bring down upon him the most intense hatred, 

 and the most violent maledictions, was to be 

 expected, but even his bitterest enemies never 

 accused him of perverting the public funds to 

 his own purposes, or to fill the pockets of his 

 friends. He was believed to be quite in- 

 corruptible. After Mr. Lincoln's death he 

 was retained in the Cabinet by Mr. Johnson ; 

 but ere long his stanch fidelity to the princi- 

 ples for which the war had been prosecuted 

 made him obnoxious to the President, who, 



