Excerpt from The Ohio Illustrated Magazine, Vol. 1

The election of Lincoln drew President Buchanan into serious negotiations with the Southern leaders with whom, as a Democrat, he was in sympathy. He soon felt the need of a strong constitutional lawyer to steer the ship of state aright, since attorney-general Black had been ap pointed Secretary of State to succeed General Cass. His choice fell upon Stan ton, who abandoned a lucrative practice at the call of duty. Dangers were brew ing fast around his beloved country and he was needed to defend the Union. On the twentieth of December, 1860, the very day Stanton entered the Cabinet, South Carolina declared the Union dissolved. The boy patriot of eighteen who had ral lied to Jackson's call was revealed to an anxious country in his manhood as again the Jacksonian apostle, to teach South Carolina and all the other states that fol lowed her, and all the world for all time thereafter, that the Union must and shall be preserved.

There are many remarkable things in Stanton's life. I venture to point out what seems to me a wonderful coinci dence. Lincoln as a youth saw a slave auction on the Mississippi, and there and then resolved that if he ever got a chance he would hit the accursed thing hard. His time came, and he was privileged to emancipate the last slaves in a civilized land. So Stanton, changing his political party while in his teens at the call of the Union. In manhood changes the policy of his party and banishes disunion forever. For this he is destined to live in Ameri can history as one whose services to the Republic in her darkest hour rank in value with those of the foremost early fathers Franklin, Hamilton, Adams. Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln. No lower place can be assigned him than in that circle. Wa'shington must ever stand alone father among these worthy sons.

There are few more deeply interesting episodes in our history than that of Judge Black's conversion to Stanton's views. It will be remembered that as attorney general, November 2oth, 1860, he gave the President his opinion that he could not constitutionally use military force for any purpose whatever within the limits of a state where there were no United States judges, marshals, or other civil officers, and there were none in South Carolina, the Federal officials having resigned. This led to prolonged negotiations between the agents of the Southern states and the President and his Cabinet, all tending to a peaceful dissolution of the Union.

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