Sta: Stafford through Staughton

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


STAFFORD, Atkinson, Newburyport, Massachusetts, abolitionist.


STAFFORD, J. S., Cummington, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1850-56.


STALLO, Johann Bernhard (March 16, 1823-January 6, 1900), lawyer, scientist, minister to Italy.  Stallo belonged to the Democratic party until the question of slavery became acute, when he helped found the Republican party. In 1856 he was an elector for Fremont for president. At the outbreak of the Civil War he called on the Germans of Cincinnati to form a regiment, the 9th Ohio Infantry.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 496-497:

STALLO, JOHANN BERNHARD (March 16, 1823-January 6, 1900), lawyer, scientist, minister to Italy, was born at Sierhausen, Oldenburg, Germany, the son of Johann Heinrich and Maria Adelheid (Moormann) Stallo. He was of Frisian d es cent, his ancestors for many generations having been schoolmasters. Under his grandfather's tutelage he learned to read and cipher before he was four years old, and later learned English and the classical languages, while his father taught him French. At the age of thirteen he entered the normal school at Vechta and then the Gymnasium, but his father lacked means for his further education, and to avoid becoming a village schoolmaster he emigrated to America at sixteen years of age. At Cincinnati, Ohio, where an uncle had settled previously, the studious boy procured a position as teacher in a Catholic school. He published a primer, ABC, Butchstabier und Lesebuch, fur die deutschen Schulen Amerikas (1840), as well as some poems which betray a philosophical interest in nature, and until 1844 was a student at St. Xavier's College in Cincinnati, teaching German and the classical languages a t the same time. He employed all his spare time in the study of chemistry and physics and was appointed professor of these sciences in St. John's College, Fordham, New York, from 1844 to 1847. Here he studied philosophy and prepared his General Principles of the Philosophy of Nature (1848), introducing American readers to the philosophical views of Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, and Lorenz Oken. While it served its purpose in this respect, Stallo later disavowed the book as having been written " under the spell of Hegel's ontological reveries" (see the introduction to Concepts, post, p. l 1).

Stallo then returned to Cincinnati, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1849. After practising for some time he was appointed judge in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas from 1853 to 1855. One of his most famous cases was his defense of the Cincinnati School Board in a mandamus suit in which Protestant clergymen tried to force it to retain the singing of hymns and the reading of the Bible as part of the school curriculum. His brilliant plea before the superior court of Cincinnati won the day for religious freedom (see The Bible and the Public Schools, Cincinnati, 1870). Throughout the years of his law practice Stallo continued his study of philosophy, physics, and mathematics. He gave lectures on scientific subjects, was a frequent contributor to periodicals, and collected an enormous library containing some rare first editions of Kepler annotated by the scientist himself. For seventeen years he was examiner of candidates for teaching positions, was on the Board of Curators of the University of Cincinnati, and in many ways showed his interest in education. He published The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics in Appleton's International Scientific Series (volume XXXVIII, 1882), which was translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Russian. It was primarily an essay in epistemology with results similar to Ernst Mach's, and attempted to define the contemporary position of science.

Stallo was a great admirer of Jefferson and belonged to the Democratic party until the question of slavery became acute, when he helped found the Republican party. In 1856 he was an elector for Fremont. At the outbreak of the Civil War he eloquently called on the Germans of Cincinnati to form a regiment, the 9th Ohio Infantry, sometimes called "Stallo's Turner Regiment." When corruption became rife within the Republican party he joined the group of reformers who attempted to nominate Charles Francis Adams at the convention in Cincinnati in 1872. In speeches and letters Stallo always favored the interests of the people against monopolies, and was an opponent of the protective tariff. In 1885 in recognition of his activity in political reform, Cleveland appointed him minister to Italy. After four years in Rome he settled in Florence where he spent the remainder of his life with his books. He published his German writings under the title Reden, Abhandlungen und Briefe in 1893. Stallo's home was a seat of rare culture in letters, science, and music, and was open only to a few people. He was a born scholar, a keen and liberal thinker whose works anticipated the studies of Darwin. In 1855 he had been married to Helene Zimmermann, of Cincinnati, who survived him with two of their seven children.

[H. A. Rattermann, Johann Bernhard Stallo (1902); shorter accounts in Gustav Korner, Das deutsche Element in den Vereinigten Staaten (1880); T. J. McCormack, biographical article in Open Court, May 1900; Popular Sci. Monthly, February 1889; Hans Kleinpeter, "J. B. Stallo als Erkenntniskritiker," Vierteljahrsschrift fur wissenschaftliche Philosophie, November 1901; autobiographical items in preface to Stallo's Die Begriffe und Theorien der Modern en Physik (1882); Cincinnati Enquirer, January 7, 1900.]

A. E. Z.


STANBERY, Henry (February 20, 1803-June 26, 1881), lawyer, attorney-general of the United States.  He identified himself with the Whig and later the Anti-slavery wing of the Republican party and was an ardent supporter of the Lincoln administration during the Civil War.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 498-499:

STANBERY, HENRY (February 20, 1803-June 26, 1881), lawyer, attorney-general of the United States, was born in New York City, the son of Dr. Jonas and Ann Lucy (Seaman) Stanbery. In 1814 his parents removed to Ohio and settled in Zanesville. Henry showed unusual gifts as a student and was graduated from Washington College (later, Washington and Jefferson) in Pennsylvania at the age of sixteen. He then read law with Ebenezer Granger and Charles B. Goddard and upon reaching his majority was admitted to the bar. That same year he was invited into partnership with Thomas Ewing [q.v.] of Lancaster, Ohio, one of the ablest attorneys in the state, and continued in association with him until Ewing entered the United States Senate in 1831. Stanbery early developed into a thoroughly well-rounded lawyer, learned in both the technicalities and the general principles of the law, and won for himself a place at the front rank of the Ohio bar, then renowned for its distinguished practitioners. His election to the newly created office of attorney-general of Ohio in 1846 necessitated his removal from Lancaster to Columbus, and for the next few years he was engaged in organizing the new department of justice and in expanding his practice in the United States courts and in the Ohio supreme court. He was among the most influential members of the constitutional convention of 1850 and ably contributed out of his broad learning and experience to the improvement of the organic laws of the state. In 1853 he transferred his law office to Cincinnati and continued his practice there until appointed attorney-general of the United States in 1866.

A handsome man of imposing presence, kindly manner, and unsullied character, Stanbery was universally respected. His clear and forceful reasoning, persuasiveness, and finished eloquence combined to make him effective on the stump as well as in the court room, but he was not an office-seeker and seldom took a conspicuous part in political campaigns. He identified himself with the Whig and later the Republican party and was an ardent supporter of the Lincoln administration. The moderate policy of reconstruction begun by Lincoln and carried forward by Johnson appealed to him strongly, and after entering the cabinet of the latter, July 23, 1866, he interpreted the reconstruction legislation as liberally as the language of the acts permitted. Gideon Welles thought him too much a man of precedents and too timid when action seemed appropriate (Diary, post, III, 221, 308-09), but Johnson placed a high estimate upon his judgment and wisdom and apparently relied much upon him in the preparation of his veto messages. When the impeachment proceedings against the President were begun, Stanbery resigned as attorney-general (March 12, 1868) to serve as Johnson's chief counsel. After the opening days, in which he bore the main burden of the defense, illness forced him to withdraw, but he returned to make the final argument. His summation glowed with loyalty and praise for the harassed executive. At the close of the trial Johnson renominated him as attorney-general, () but the Senate, as in the case of his nomination to the United States Supreme Court in April 1866, refused to confirm his appointment. In both instances the Senate's action was undoubtedly dictated by hostility to the President rather than by any question as to the nominee's fitness. After his rejection in 1868 Stanbery resumed his practice in Cincinnati with distinguished success, but failing sight obliged him to retire about 1878. He died in New York City. He was married twice: first, in 1829, to Frances E. Beecher of Lancaster, Ohio, who died in 1840 after having borne him five children; subsequently, he married Cecelia Bond, who survived him.

[G. I. Reed, Bench and Bar of Ohio (1897), volume I; Biographical and Historical Catalog of Washington and Jefferson College (1902); Trial of Andrew Johnson (3 volumes, 1868); Diary of Gideon Welles (1911), volumes II, III; Charles Warren, The Supreme Court in U. S. History (1928), volume II; E. P. Oberholtzer, A History of the U. S. Since the Civil War, volume II (1922); W. H. Safford, in Ohio State Bar Association Reports, volume IV (1884); New York Times, June 27, 1881; Cincinnati Commercial, June 27, 1881; information from grandson.]

A.H.M.


STANFORD, John C., New York, abolitionist leader.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)


STANLEY, William H., New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1841-1842.


STANTON, Benjamin, Indiana, Society of Friends, Quaker, abolitionist, editor of the Free Labor Advocate newspaper of the Friends Anti-Slavery Society.  Manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), 1837-1840.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, p. 165)


STANTON, Daniel, 1708-1770, Friends Society (Quaker), preacher. 

(Drake, 1950, pp. 61, 68; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 648)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 648:

STANTON, Daniel, Quaker preacher, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1708; died there, 28 June, 1770. He began to preach in 1728, travelled in New England and the West Indies, went to Europe in 1748, and visited the southern colonies in 1760, preaching zealously against slavery as well as worldliness and the vices of society. See “Journal of his Life, Travels, and Gospel Labors” (Philadelphia, 1772). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 648.


STANTON, Edwin McMasters, 1814-1869, statesman, lawyer, anti-slavery activist.  U. S. Secretary of War, 1862-1867.  Favored Wilmot Proviso to exclude slavery from the new territories acquired by the U.S. after the War with Mexico in 1846.  Member of the Free Soil movement. 

(Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 65, 67, 69, 72, 144, 147-148; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 648-649; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 517; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 20, p. 558).

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

STANTON, Edwin McMasters, statesman, born in Steubenville Ohio, 19 December, 1814; died in Washington, D. C., 24 December, 1869. His father, a physician died while Edwin was a child. After acting for three years as a clerk in a book-store, he entered Kenyon College in 1831, but left in 1833 to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1836, and, beginning practice in Cadiz, was in 1837 elected prosecuting attorney. He returned to Steubenville in 1839, and was supreme court reporter in 1842-'5, preparing volumes xi., xii., and xiii. of the Ohio reports. In 1848 he moved to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and in 1857, on account of his large business in the U. S. Supreme Court, he established himself in Washington. During 1857-'8 he was in California, attending to important land cases for the government. Among the notable suits that he conducted were the first Erie Railway litigation, the Wheeling Bridge Case, and the Manney and McCormick reaper contest in 1859. When Lewis Cass retired from President Buchanan's cabinet, and Jeremiah S. Black was made Secretary of State, Stanton was appointed the latter's successor in the office of Attorney-General, 20 December, 1860. He was originally a Democrat of the Jackson school, and, until Van Buren's defeat in the Baltimore Convention of 1844, took an active part in political affairs in his locality. He favored the Wilmot proviso, to exclude slavery from the territory acquired by the war with Mexico, and sympathized with the Free-Soil movement of 1848, headed by Martin Van Buren. He was an anti-slavery man, but his hostility to that institution was qualified by his view of the obligations imposed by the Federal Constitution. He had held no public offices before entering President Buchanan's cabinet except those of prosecuting attorney for one year in Harrison County, Ohio, and reporter of the Ohio Supreme Court for three years, being wholly devoted to his profession. While a member of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet, he took a firm stand for the Union, and at a cabinet meeting, when John B. Floyd, then Secretary of War, demanded the withdrawal of the United States troops from the forts in Charleston Harbor, he indignantly declared that the surrender of Fort Sumter would be, in his opinion, a crime, equal to that of Arnold, and that all who participated in it should be hung like André. After the meeting, Floyd sent in his resignation. President Lincoln, though since his accession to the presidency he had held no communication with Mr. Stanton, called him to the head of the War Department on the retirement of Simon Cameron, 15 January, 1862. As was said by an eminent senator of the United States: “He certainly came to the public service with patriotic and not with sordid motives, surrendering a most brilliant position at the bar, and with it the emolument of which, in the absence of accumulated wealth, his family was in daily need.” Infirmities of temper he had, but they were incident to the intense strain upon his nerves caused by his devotion to duties that would have soon prostrated most men, however robust, as they finally prostrated him. He had no time for elaborate explanations for refusing trifling or selfish requests, and his seeming abruptness of manner was often but rapidity in transacting business which had to be thus disposed of, or be wholly neglected. As he sought no benefit to himself, but made himself an object of hatred to the dishonest and the inefficient, solely in the public interest, and as no enemy ever accused him of wrong-doing, the charge of impatience and hasty temper will not detract from the high estimate placed by common consent upon his character as a man, a patriot, and a statesman.

Mr. Stanton's entrance into the cabinet marked the beginning of a vigorous military policy. On 27 January, 1862, was issued the first of the president's war orders, prescribing a general movement of the troops. His impatience at General George B. McClellan's apparent inaction caused friction between the administration and the general-in-chief, which ended in the latter's retirement. He selected General Ulysses S. Grant for promotion after the victory at Fort Donelson, which General Henry W. Halleck in his report had ascribed to the bravery of General Charles F. Smith, and in the autumn of 1863 he placed Grant in supreme command of the three armies operating in the southwest, directed him to relieve General William S. Rosecrans before his army at Chattanooga could be forced to surrender. President Lincoln said that he never took an important step without consulting his Secretary of War. It has been asserted that, on the eve of Mr. Lincoln's second inauguration, he proposed to allow General Grant to make terms of peace with General Lee, and that Mr. Stanton dissuaded him from such action. According to a bulletin of Mr. Stanton that was issued at the time, the president wrote the despatch directing the general of the army to confer with the Confederate commander on none save purely military questions without previously consulting the members of the cabinet. At a cabinet council that was held in consultation with General Grant, the terms on which General William T. Sherman proposed to accept the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston were disapproved by all who were present. To the bulletin announcing the telegram that was sent to General Sherman, which directed him to guide his actions by the despatch that had previously been sent to General Grant, forbidding military interference in the political settlement, a statement of the reasons for disapproving Sherman's arrangement was appended, obviously by the direction of Secretary Stanton. These were: (1) that it was unauthorized; (2) that it was an acknowledgment of the Confederate government; (3) that it re-established rebel state governments; (4) that it would enable rebel state authorities to restore slavery; (5) that it involved the question of the Confederate states debt; (6) that it would put in dispute the state government of West Virginia; (7) that it abolished confiscation, and relieved rebels of all penalties; (8) that it gave terms that had been rejected by President Lincoln; (9) that it formed no basis for peace, but relieved rebels from the pressure of defeat, and left them free to renew the war. General Sherman defended his course on the ground that he had before him the public examples of General Grant's terms to General Lee's army, and General Weitzel's invitation to the Virginia legislature to assemble at Richmond. His central motive, in giving terms that would be cheerfully accepted, he declared to be the peaceful disbandment of all the Confederate armies, and the prevention of guerilla warfare. He had never seen President Lincoln's telegram to General Grant of 3 March, 1865, above quoted, nor did he know that General Weitzel's permission for the Virginia legislature to assemble had been rescinded.

A few days before the president's death Secretary Stanton tendered his resignation because his task was completed, but was persuaded by Mr. Lincoln to remain. After the assassination of Lincoln a serious controversy arose between the new president, Andrew Johnson, and the Republican Party, and Mr. Stanton took sides against the former on the subject of reconstruction. On 5 August, 1867, the president demanded his resignation; but he refused to give up his office before the next meeting of Congress, following the urgent counsels of leading men of the Republican Party. He was suspended by the president on 12 August on 13 January, 1868, he was restored by the action of the Senate, and resumed his office. On 21 February, 1868, the president informed the Senate that he had removed Secretary Stanton, and designated a secretary ad interim. Mr. Stanton refused to surrender the office pending the action of the Senate on the president's message. At a late hour of the same day the Senate resolved that the president bad not the power to remove the secretary. Mr. Stanton, thus sustained by the Senate, refused to surrender the office. The impeachment of the president followed, and on 26 May, the vote of the Senate being “guilty,” 35, “not guilty,” 19, he was acquitted—two thirds not voting for conviction. After Mr. Stanton's retirement from office he resumed the practice of law. On 20 December, 1869, he was appointed by President Grant a justice of the Supreme Court, and he was forthwith confirmed by the Senate. Four days later he expired.

The value to the country of his services during the Civil War cannot be overestimated. His energy, inflexible integrity, systematized industry, comprehensive view of the situation in its military, political, and international aspects, his power to command and supervise the best services of others, and his unbending will and invincible courage, made him at once the stay of the president, the hope of the country, and a terror to dishonesty and imbecility. The vastness of his labors led to brusqueness in repelling importunities, which made him many enemies. But none ever questioned his honesty, his patriotism, or his capability. A “Memoir” of Mr. Stanton is at present in preparation by his son, Lewis M. Stanton. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 648-649.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 517:

STANTON, EDWIN MCMASTERS (December 19, 1814-December 24, 1869), attorney-general and secretary of war, a native of Steubenville, Ohio, was the eldest of the four children of David and Lucy (Norman) Stanton. His father, a physician of Quaker stock, was descended from Robert Stanton, who came to America between 1627 and 1638, and, after living in New Plymouth, moved to Newport, Rhode Island, before 1645, and from the latter's grandson, Henry, who went to North Carolina between 1721 and 1724 (W. H. Stanton, post, pp. 27-34). His mother was the daughter of a Virginia planter. The death of Dr. Stanton in 1827 left his wife in straitened circumstances and Edwin was obliged to withdraw from school and supplement the family income by employment in a local bookstore. He continued his studies in his spare time, however, and in 1831 was admitted to Kenyon College at Gambier, Ohio. During his junior year his funds gave out and he was again obliged to accept a place in a bookstore, this time in Columbus. Unable to earn enough to return to Kenyon for the completion of his course, he turned to the study of law in the office of his guardian, Daniel L. Collier, and in 1836 was admitted to the bar. His practice began in Cadiz, the seat of Harrison County, but in 1839 he removed to Steubenville to become a partner of Senator-elect Benjamin Tappan.

Stanton's ability, energy, and fidelity to his profession brought him quick recognition and a comfortable income. To give wider range to his talents he moved to Pittsburgh in 1847 and later, in 1856 he became a resident of Washington, D. C., in order to devote himself more to cases before the Supreme Court. His work as counsel for the state of Pennsylvania (1849-56) against the Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Company (13 Howard, 518; 18 Howard, 421) gave him a national reputation and resulted in his retention for much important litigation. He was one of the leading counsel in the noted patent case of McCormick vs. Manny (John McLean, Reports of Cases  ... in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Seventh Circuit, volume VI, 1856, p. 539) and made a deep impression upon one of his associates, Abraham Lincoln, because of his masterly defense of their client, Manny (A. J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1928, volume I, 581). Stanton's practice was chiefly in civil and constitutional law, but in 1859 in defending Daniel E. Sickles [q.v.], charged with murder, he demonstrated that he was no less gifted in handling criminal suits. More important than any of these cases, however, was his work in California in 1858 as special counsel for the United States government in combatting fraudulent claims to lands alleged to have been deeded by Mexico to numerous individuals prior to the Mexican War. It was a task requiring prodigious and painstaking research in the collection of data and the most careful presentation, but Stanton proved equal to the occasion and won for the government a series of notable victories. It has been estimated that the lands involved were worth $150,000,000. His services in this connection were undoubtedly the most distinguished of his legal career. As a lawyer Stanton was capable of extraordinary mental labor; he was orderly and methodical, mastering with great precision the law and the facts of his cases, and he was able apparently to plead with equal effectiveness before judges and juries.

It was his success in the California land cases, together with the influence of Jeremiah S. Black [q.v.], that won for him the appointment of attorney-general on December 20, 1860, when Buchanan reorganized his cabinet. Prior to that time Stanton had taken little part in politics and had held only two minor offices, those of prosecuting attorney of Harrison County, Ohio (1837-39), and reporter of Ohio supreme court decisions (1842-45). Jacksonian principles enlisted his sympathies while an undergraduate and he appears to have adhered quite consistently to the Democratic party from that time until his entrance into Lincoln's cabinet in 1862. He favored the Wilmot Proviso, however, and was critical of the domination of the Southern wing of the party during the two decades before 1860. Like his forebears he disapproved of the institution of slavery, but he accepted the Dred Scott decision without question and contended that all laws constitutionally enacted for the protection of slavery should be rigidly enforced. He supported Breckinridge's candidacy for the presidency in 1860 in the belief that the preservation of the Union hung on the forlorn hope of his election (Gorham, post, I, 79). Above all Stanton was a thorough-going Unionist.

In Buchanan's cabinet he promptly joined with Black and Joseph Holt [q.v.] in opposition to the abandonment of Fort Sumter and was zealous in the pursuit of persons whom he believed to be plotting against the government. Since he was of an excitable and suspicious temperament, his mind was full of forebodings of insurrection and assassination, and, while he hated the "Black Republicans," he collogued with Seward, Sumner, and others in order that they might be apprised of the dangers he apprehended to be afoot. The disclosure of this later resulted in the charge that he had betrayed Buchanan (Atlantic Monthly and Galaxy, post). If Stanton was at odds with the President at that time he gave him no indication of it for Buchanan wrote in 1862: "He was always on my side and flattered me ad nauseam" (G. T. Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, 1883, volume II, 523).

During the early months of Lincoln's presidency, Stanton, now in private life, was utterly distrustful of him and unsparing in his criticism of "the imbecility of this administration" (Ibid., II, 559). When George B. McClellan [q.v.] took over the control of the operations of the army in 1861, Stanton became his friend and confidential legal adviser and expressed to him his contempt for the President and his cabinet. Oddly enough, soon afterwards he also became legal adviser to Secretary of War Simon Cameron [q.v.] and aided in framing the latter's annual report recommending the arming of slaves (Atlantic Monthly, February 1870, p. 239; October 1870, p. 470). It was this proposal, offensive to Lincoln, which hastened Cameron's departure from the War Department and inadvertently helped to pave the way for Stanton's succession to the post. Although he had had no personal contacts of any kind with Lincoln since March 4, 1861, Stanton was nominated for the secretaryship, confirmed on January 15, 1862, and five days later entered upon his duties. Various plausible explanations for his selection by Lincoln have been given. Gideon Welles firmly believed that Seward was responsible for it, but Cameron claimed the credit for himself (American Historical Review, April 1926, pp. 491 ff.; Meneely, post, pp. 366-68). The true circumstances may never be known.

Stanton was generally conceded to be able, energetic, and patriotic, and his appointment was well received. It presaged a more honest and efficient management of departmental affairs and a more aggressive prosecution of the war. In these respects the new secretary measured up to the public expectations. He immediately reorganized the department, obtained authorization for the increase of its personnel, and systematized the work to be done. Contracts were investigated, those tainted with fraud were revoked, and their perpetrators were prosecuted without mercy. Interviews became public hearings; patronage hunters received scant and usually brusque consideration; and the temporizing replies of Cameron gave way to the summary judgments of his successor. At an early date Stanton persuaded Congress to authorize the taking over of the railroads and telegraph lines where necessary, and prevailed upon the President to release all political prisoners in military custody and to transfer the control of extraordinary arrests from the State to the War Department. Also he promptly put himself in close touch with generals, governors, and others having to do with military affairs, and especially with the congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War.

For a few months after entering office Stanton continued his friendly relations with McClellan and assured the general of his desire to furnish all necessary materiel, but he became impatient when McClellan proved slow in accomplishing tangible results. Despite the Secretary's professions of confidence and cooperation, McClellan soon became distrustful and suspected Stanton of seeking his removal. The withdrawing of McDowell's forces from the main army in the Peninsular campaign was attributed to Stanton and editorial attacks upon him began to appear in the New York press which were believed to have been inspired by McClellan (Gorham, I, 415-21). Both men were too suspicious, jealous, and otherwise ill-suited to work in harmony; trouble between them was inevitable. Stanton was particularly irked by McClellan's disobedience to orders and in August 1862 joined with Chase and others in the cabinet in seeking to have him deprived of any command (Welles, Diary, I, 83, 93, 95- 101; "Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase," Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, 1903, volume II, 62-63).

Although McClellan constantly complained of a shortage of men, supplies, and equipment, Stanton appears to have made vigorous efforts to meet his requisitions. The same was true with respect to other commanders in the several theatres of operations. His dispatch of 23,000 men to the support of Rosecrans at Chattanooga (September 1863) in less than seven days and under trying circumstances was one of the spectacular feats of the war. Quickness of decision, mastery of detail, and vigor in execution were among Stanton's outstanding characteristics as a war administrator, and he became annoyed when his subordinates proved deficient in these qualities. He was frequently accused of meddling with military operations and was probably guilty of it on many occasions; but Grant had no complaint to make of him in this respect. His severe censorship of the press was also a source of much criticism in newspaper circles, and his exercise of the power of extraordinary arrest was often capricious and harmful. Soldiers and civilians alike found him arrogant, irascible, and often brutal and unjust. Grant said that he "cared nothing for the feeling of others" and seemed to find it pleasanter "to disappoint than to gratify" (Personal Memoirs, volume II, 1886, p. 536). A noted instance of his harshness was his published repudiation of General Sherman's terms to the defeated Johnston in May 1865. That Sherman had exceeded his authority was generally admitted, but the severity of the rebuke was as unmerited as it was ungrateful. Again, Stanton's part in the trial and execution of Mrs. Surratt, charged with complicity in Lincoln's assassination, and his efforts to implicate Jefferson Davis in the murder of the President were exceedingly discreditable (Milton, post, Ch. x; DeWitt, post, pp. 232-34; 272-76). His vindictiveness in both instances was probably owing in part to a desire to avenge the death of his chief, whose loss he mourned. Intimate association for three years had gradually revealed Lincoln's nature and capacities to Stanton, and while he was sometimes as discourteous to him as to others, there developed between the two men a mutual trust and admiration.

At the request of President Johnson, Stanton retained his post after Lincoln's death and ably directed the demobilization of the Union armies. At the same time he entered upon a course with respect to reconstruction. and related problems that brought him into serious conflict with the President and several of his colleagues. During the war he appears to have been deferential and ingratiating in his relations with the radical element in Congress, particularly with the powerful congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, and when peace came he began almost immediately to counsel with leading members of that faction as to the course to be pursued in reconstruction. Although he expressed approval in cabinet meetings of the President's proclamation of May 29, 1865, initiating a reasonable policy of restoration under executive direction, it was soon suspected by many of Johnson's supporters that Stanton was out of sympathy with the administration and intriguing with the rising opposition. In this they were not mistaken (Beale, post, pp. 101-06). When Charles Sumner in a speech on September 14, 1865, denounced the presidential policy, insisted on congressional control of reconstruction, and sponsored negro suffrage, Stanton hastened to assure him that he indorsed "every sentiment, every opinion and word of it" (Welles, II, 394). From the summer of 1865 onward, upon nearly every issue he advised a course of action which would have played into the hands of the Radicals and fostered a punitive Southern policy. He urged the acceptance of the Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights bills of 1866, and while he was evasive regarding the report of the Stevens committee on reconstruction, he subsequently expressed approval of the Military Reconstruction bill based upon it which was passed over the President's veto on March 2, 1867 (Welles, III, 49; Gorham, II, 420). Stanton actually dictated for Boutwell [q.v.] an amendment to the army appropriation act of 1867 requiring the president to issue his army orders through the secretary of war or the general of the army and making invalid any order issued otherwise (G. S. Boutwell, Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, 1902, volume II, 107-08; Milton, p. 378). He was also responsible for the supplementary reconstruction act of July 19, 1867, which exempted military commanders from any obligation to accept the opinions of civil officers of the government as to their rules of action (Gorham, II, 373). The one important measure in the rejection of which the Secretary concurred was the Tenure of Office bill which was chiefly intended to insure his own retention in the War Department. He was emphatic in denouncing its unconstitutionality and "protested with ostentatious vehemence that any man who would retain his seat in the Cabinet as an adviser when his advice was not wanted was unfit for the place" (Welles, III, 158; J. D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1897, volume VI, 587). He aided Seward in drafting the veto message.

For more than a year Johnson had been importuned by his supporters to remove Stanton and he repeatedly gave the Secretary to understand "by every mode short of an expressed request that he should resign" (Richardson, ante, VI, 584), but Stanton ignored them and with fatal hesitation the President permitted him to remain. In doing so he virtually gave his opponents a seat in the cabinet. By the beginning of August 1867, however, Johnson could tolerate his mendacious minister no longer. He had become convinced that the insubordination of General Sheridan and other commanders in the military districts was being encouraged by the Secretary and he was now satisfied that Stanton had plotted against him in the matter of the reconstruction legislation. Consequently, on August 5, he called for his resignation, but Stanton brazenly declined to yield before Congress reassembled. in December, contending that the Tenure of Office bill had become law by its passage over the veto and Johnson was bound to obey it. A week later he was suspended, but in January 1868 he promptly resumed his place when the Senate declined to concur in his suspension. Johnson then resolved to dismiss him regardless of the consequences and did so on February 21, 1868. Stanton with equal determination declared that he would "continue in possession until expelled by force" (Gorham, II, 440), and was supported by the Senate. He ordered the arrest of Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas, who had been designated secretary ad interim, and had a guard posted to insure his own occupancy and protect the department records from seizure. For several weeks thereafter he remained in the War Department building day and night, but when the impeachment charges failed (May 26, 1868) he accepted the inevitable and resigned the same day.  

Over-exertion during his public life, together with internal ailments, had undermined Stanton's health and he found it necessary after leaving the department to undergo a period of rest. During the fall of 1868 he managed to give some active support to Grant's candidacy and to resume to a limited extent his law practice, but he never regained his former vigor. He was frequently importuned to be a candidate for public office, but steadfastly refused. His friends in Congress, however, prevailed upon Grant to offer him a justiceship on the United States Supreme Court and this he accepted. His nomination was confirmed on December 20, 1869, but death overtook him before he could occupy his seat.

With the gradual rehabilitation of Andrew Johnson's reputation Stanton's has suffered a sharp decline. His ability as a lawyer and his achievements as a tireless and versatile administrator during the Civil War have not been seriously questioned, but his defects of temperament and the disclosures of his amazing disloyalty and duplicity in his official relations detract from his stature as a public man. In 1867 he explained his remaining in the War Department by contending that his duties as a department head were defined by law and that he was not "bound to accord with the President on all grave questions of policy or administration" (Gorham, II, 421; J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, 1920, VI, 210, note 3); but shortly before his death he is said to have admitted that "he had never doubted the constitutional right of the President to remove members of his Cabinet without question from any quarter whatever," and that in his reconstruction program Johnson advocated measures that had been favorably considered by Lincoln (Hugh McCulloch, 20 Men and Measures of Half a Century, 1888, pp. 401-02). Stanton was encouraged in his disloyalty and defiance by Republican politicians, newspapers, and Radical protagonists generally, but his conduct has found few defenders among modern students of the post-war period. Whether he was motivated by egotism, mistaken patriotism, or a desire to stand well with the congressional opposition is difficult to determine.

In appearance Stanton was thick-set and of medium height; a strong, heavy neck supported a massive head thatched with long, black, curling hair. His nose and eyes were large, his mouth was wide and stern. A luxuriant crop of coarse black whiskers concealed his jaws and chin. Altogether he was a rather fierce looking man; there was point to Montgomery Blair's characterization, the "black terrier." Stanton was twice married. Mary Ann Lamson of Columbus, Ohio, with whom he was united on December 31, 1836, died in 1844. On June 25, 1856, he married Ellen M. Hutchison, the daughter of a wealthy merchant of Pittsburgh. Two children were born of the first union; four of the second. His biographers assure us that in his family life Stanton was a model husband and father, and for his mother, who survived him, he appears to have cherished a lifelong filial devotion.

[There is no satisfactory biography of Stanton. G. C. Gorham, The Life and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton (2 volumes, 1899), and F. A. Flower,   Edwin McMasters Stanton (1905) contain much useful data, but both are extremely laudatory. The Diary of Gideon Welles (3 volumes, 1911), although hostile, is a very serviceable documentary source. The writings and biographical literature of other public men of the day contain numerous references to Stanton. Of especial value for the war period are J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History (10 volumes, 1890), and Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln (12 volumes, Gettysburg ed., 1905).

See also A. H. Meneely, The War Department-1861 (1928). G. F. Milton, The Age of Hate: Andrew Johnson and the Radicals (1931), and H. K. Beale, The Critical Year (1930) are the most scholarly of the recent studies of the reconstruction era.

D. M. DeWitt, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1903), is the standard book on the subject and has a sharply critical chapter on Stanton's public career.

Revealing disclosures of his conduct while in Buchanan's cabinet are to be found in the Black-Wilson controversy in the Atlantic Monthly, February, October 1870, and the Galaxy, June 1870, February 1871, reprinted as A Contribution to History (1871).

The papers of Stanton and many of his associates are deposited in the Library of Congress these, together with War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), and other government publications pertaining to the war and reconstruction problems are the basic sources for the study of Stanton's official life. Genealogical material is in

W. H. Stanton. A Book Called Our Ancestors the Stantons (1922). For an obituary, see New York Daily Tribune, December 25, 1869.]

A.H.M.


STANTON, Elizabeth Cady, 1815-1902, reformer, suffragist, abolitionist leader, co-founder of the Women’s National Loyal League in 1863, co-founded American Equal Rights Association (AERA) in 1866. 

(Drake, 1950; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 35, 137, 277; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 47, 170, 388, 465, 519; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, pp. 66-67; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, 1994, pp. 30, 85-87, 149, 157, 301, 302n; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 650; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 521; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 20, p. 562). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 521-523:

STANTON, ELIZABETH CADY (November 12, 1815-October 26, 1902), reformer and leader in the woman's rights movement, was born in Johnstown, New York. Her parents were Daniel Cady [q.v.] and Margaret (Livingston) Cady, daughter of Colonel James Livingston [q.v.]. A stern religious atmosphere pervaded her home, and as a child Elizabeth feared rather than loved her parents, who seem to have had little positive influence upon the shaping of her personality and character. Simon Hosack, minister of the Presbyterian church to which the Cady family belonged, had a larger share in her affections and did much to give a serious, purposeful bent to her life. Her education was superior to that of most girls of her time. Encouraged by Simon Hosack, she studied Greek, Latin, and mathematics with classes of boys in the academy in Johnstown, where she spent several years, and took second prize in Greek. At the age of fifteen she was sent to the famous seminary of Emma Willard [q.v.] at Troy, New York, from which she graduated in 1832. For a time she studied law with her father. She early learned that she was living in an imperfect world. As a small child, hearing women in her father's law office pour forth recitals of wrongs supported by existing law, she was troubled by the handicaps and discriminations existing against her sex. In her young womanhood, under the influence of her cousin Gerrit Smith [q.v.] of Peterboro, New York, she likewise became deeply interested in temperance and anti-slavery, but it was not until somewhat later that she was fully launched as a reformer.

It is significant that on May 10, 1840, when she married Henry Brewster Stanton [q.v.], the word "obey" was at her insistence omitted from the ceremony. Stanton, who later became known as a lawyer and journalist, was already a noted abolitionist and immediately after his wedding went as a delegate to the world anti-slavery convention held in London in the summer of 1840. There his wife, who accompanied him, met Lucretia Coffin Mott [q.v.] and was much influenced by conversations with her. When Mrs. Mott and a few other American women who were delegates to the anti-slavery gathering were refused official recognition by the convention on the ground of their sex, Mrs. Mott and Mrs. Stanton resolved to hold a woman's rights convention upon their return to the United States. Though the execution of this resolve was delayed, Mrs. Stanton began to work for temperance and abolition, and used her influence for the passage of the married woman's property bill of New York State, which finally became a law in 1848. Two years before this she moved with her husband and their children from Boston, where they had been living, to Seneca Falls, New York, and the handicaps she was aware of in this small frontier-like community made her thoughts turn more seriously to the hard, circumscribed lot of woman. Her mind was full of the subject when, on July 13, 1848, she again met Lucretia Mott. To Mrs. Mott and a few others she poured out her indignation at the established order and succeeded in so rousing herself as well as the others that a week later, July 19 and 20, they held a woman's rights convention in the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Seneca Falls. Mrs. Stanton, who made the opening speech, read a "Declaration of Sentiments," modeled after the Declaration of Independence, setting forth the grievances of women against existing law and custom, and she was wholly responsible for a resolution demanding suffrage. When Lucretia Mott protested against the last, "Why, Lizzie, thee will make us ridiculous," the author of the resolution defended it as the key to all other rights for women, and with the help of Frederick Douglass [q.v.] it was adopted with ten other resolutions.

The Seneca Falls convention, which promptly became the object of sarcasm, ridicule, and denunciation from press and pulpit, formally launched the modern woman's rights movement. Other conventions devoted to the same purpose soon followed, and in many of them Mrs. Stanton played a leading part. In addition she gave much time to writing articles, protests, and petitions, lecturing in public, and speaking before legislative bodies in the interest of temperance, abolition, and woman's rights, but as the years passed she devoted more and more of her time to the cause of women. From 1851, when she first met Susan B. Anthony and induced her to enlist in the crusade for woman's rights, the two women worked together, a remarkably efficient pair whose association ended only with Mrs. Stanton's death. Together they planned campaign programs, organization work, and speeches and addresses; together they appeared upon public and convention platforms, and before legislative bodies and congressional committees to plead for woman's rights. Miss Anthony had the greater persistence and was the better organizer and executive, but her colleague was the more eloquent and graceful speaker and writer, and in general had a more charming and persuasive personality. Both were hard fighters and both were long considered rather dangerous radicals, though Mrs. Stanton was at first more conspicuous in this latter regard because of her pioneer stand for suffrage and her demand a little later that women be permitted to secure divorce on the grounds of drunkenness and brutality. Though she hated war as stupid and wicked, she saw the Civil War as a struggle for the abolition of slavery, and helped to organize and became president of the Women's Loyal National League, which supported the Union and fostered the complete emancipation of slaves. The war ended, she and her colleagues first strove to secure suffrage for women in connection with the enfranchisement of negro men, but they later renewed and enlarged their earlier activities directly in behalf of woman's rights. When in May 1869 the National Woman Suffrage Association was founded, she was chosen president, an office which for the most part she held until 1890; at that time the organization was united with the American Woman Suffrage Association to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association, of which she was also elected president. These twenty-one years at the head of the more radical of the two woman's rights organizations covered the period of Mrs. Stanton's greatest activity for the cause to which she had dedicated herself. Partly from a suggestion of hers came the first International Council of Women, held in Washington in 1888 under the auspices of the National Woman Suffrage Association, and it was she who sent out the call, and made the opening and closing addresses before the Council.

In addition to her suffrage work, from 1869 to 1881 she devoted eight months annually to lyceum lecturing throughout the country, usually on family life and the training of children, of whom she had borne and reared seven. She also found time to write for publication. In 1868 she and Parker Pillsbury [q.v.] as joint editors started the Revolution, a weekly devoted especially to woman's rights, and many of the best articles and editorials appearing during her connection of about two years with the publication were from her pen. She was largely responsible, too, for the Woman's Bible, published in two parts in 1895 and 1898. To newspapers and magazines, especially the North American Review, she contributed many articles. In 1898 she published her reminiscences, Eighty Years and kl ore. But her monumental undertaking was the compilation, in conjunction with Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage [q.v.], of the first three ponderous volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage (1881-86). In the cause of woman's rights she was undoubtedly one of the most influential leaders of her day. Her strong and undaunted manner made her very impressive, though she was short in stature, not exceeding five feet three inches. Her skin was fresh and fair, and the good-natured expression of her face was accentuated by the merry twinkle rarely absent from her clear, light blue eyes. In youth her curly hair was black, but it began early to turn gray and by middle age was snowy white. She died at her New York City home when she was closing her eighty-seventh year. She was survived by six of her children.

[See O. P Allen  Descendants of Nicholas Cady of Watertown, Massachusetts, I645-I910 (1910), where Mrs. Stanton 's name is given as Elizabeth Smith Cady; Who's Who in America, 1901-02; Elizabeth Cady Stanton as Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences (2 volumes, 1922), ed. by Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch; History of Woman Suffrage (6 volumes, 1881...1922), ed. by E. C. Stanton, etc.; Alice S. Blackwell, Lucy Stone, Pioneer of Woman's Rights (1930); obituary in New York Times, October 27, 1902. In the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., are some unpublished letters of minor importance.]

M. W.W.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 650:

STANTON, Elizabeth Cady, reformer, born in Johnstown, New York, 12 November, 1815, is the daughter of Judge Daniel Cady, and, after receiving her first education at the Johnstown academy, was graduated at Mrs. Emma Willard's seminary in Troy, New York, in 1832. While attending the World's anti-slavery convention in London in 1840 she met Lucretia Mott, with whom she was in sympathy, and with whom she signed the call for the first Woman's rights convention. This was held at her home in Seneca Falls, on 19 and 20 July, 1848, on which occasion the first formal claim of suffrage for women was made. She addressed the New York legislature on the rights of married women in 1854, and in advocacy of divorce for drunkenness in 1860, and in 1867 spoke before the legislature and the constitutional convention, maintaining that during the revision of the constitution the state was resolved into its original elements and that citizens of both sexes had a right to vote for members of that convention. She canvassed Kansas in 1867 and Michigan in 1874, when the question of woman suffrage was submitted to the people of those states, and since 1869 she has addressed congressional committees and state constitutional conventions upon this subject, besides giving numerous lectures. She was president from 1855 till 1865 of the national committee of her party, of the Woman's loyal league in 1863, and of the National woman suffrage association until 1873. In 1868 she was a candidate for congress. She has written many calls to conventions and addresses, and was an editor with Susan B. Anthony and Parker Pillsbury of '”The Revolution,” which was founded in 1868, and is joint author of '”History of Woman's suffrage” (vols. i. and ii., New York, 1880; vol. iii., Rochester, 1886).—Their son, Theodore, journalist, born in Seneca Falls, New York, 10 February, 1851, was graduated at Cornell in 1876. In 1880 he was the Berlin correspondent of the New York “Tribune,” and he is now (1888) engaged in journalism in Paris, France. He is a contributor to periodicals, translated and edited Le Goff's “Life of Thiers” (New York, 1879), and is the author of The Woman Question in Europe” (1884). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 650. 


STANTON, Frederick Perry (December 22, 1814-June 4, 1894), congressman and acting governor of Kansas Territory,

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, pp. 523-524:

STANTON, FREDERICK PERRY (December 22, 1814-June 4, 1894), congressman and acting governor of Kansas Territory, was born in Alexandria, then a part of the District of Columbia, the son of Richard and Harriet (Perry) Stanton. Richard Henry Stanton [q.v.] was an older brother. The boy was taught the bricklayer's trade by his father, and attended the private school conducted by Benjamin Hallowell [q.v.]. Later he taught in this same school, and also at Occoquan and at Portsmouth Academy in Virginia. After receiving the degree of A.B. from Columbian College (now George Washington University) in 1833, he served for two years as principal of Elizabeth City Academy in North Carolina. Meantime he read law, was admitted to the Alexandria bar, and joined the Democratic party. In 1835 he removed to Somerville, Tennessee, and some two years later to Memphis, where he practised his profession and contributed political editorials to the Gazette. On December 25, 1835, he married Jane Harriet Sommers Lanphier of Alexandria. They had nine children, five of whom died in infancy. In 1845 Stanton entered Congress from the Memphis district and served until March 3, 1855. He was assigned to the committee on naval affairs, and became its chairman in December 1849. His speeches reveal a wealth of scientific nautical information. He contended that replacements rather than additions would promote efficiency in the navy, advocated the use of heavier ordnance and the screw propeller, and proposed regular itineraries for both the Atlantic and the Pacific fleets. In the speakership contest of 1849 he introduced the resolution to substitute the plurality for the majority rule which resulted in the election of Howell Cobb [q.v.]. During the crisis of 1850 he threatened secession unless a satisfactory compromise was effected, and he voted against the District of Columbia slave trade bill, and against the admission of California as a free state. In discussing the Kansas-Nebraska measure, he assured the North that slavery could not exist in either territory, and that the bill was of no practical importance to the South "except for the principle of non-intervention." During his last term he served as chairman of the judiciary committee.

After a decade in Congress Stanton retired voluntarily but continued to reside in Washington, where he practised law. On March 10, 1857, President Buchanan appointed him secretary of Kansas Territory, and he went there with a natural pro-slavery prejudice. From his arrival at Lecompton on April 15 until he was relieved by Robert J. Walker [q.v.] on May 27, he served as acting governor. He urged a general political amnesty, promised a safeguarded franchise, and pledged enforcement of the territorial laws. With inadequate information on conditions in Kansas, he apportioned delegates to the Lecompton convention under an incomplete and inequitable census. Practical experience in the territory developed open-mindedness, and in the summer of 1857 both Walker and Stanton promised a fair vote in the October election for members of a legislature. They redeemed their pledge by rejecting sufficient fraudulent votes to change the party character of both houses. This act cost Walker his position and Stanton again became acting governor (November 16-December 21). At the request of Free-State men he convened the newly chosen legislature in extra session to provide a referendum on the whole Lecompton constitution. His removal for this act completed his transition to the Free-State party, and in the winter of 1858 he toured the North to lay its cause before the people. After Kansas was admitted into the Union in 1861, Stanton was defeated for the United States Senate. A few months later, when Senator James H. Lane [q.v.] accepted a brigadiership, Governor Charles Robinson appointed Stanton to the supposed vacancy; but the Senate decided that none existed.

Soon after his arrival in Kansas, Stanton purchased a tract of land near Lecompton and erected a commodious stone house. In 1862 he removed to "Farmwell," in Virginia, and resumed law practice in Washington. Years later (1886) he settled in Florida. At the height of his congressional career, Buchanan characterized him as persevering, industrious, faithful, and able, credited him with "practical sense and sound judgment," and designated him as "the most promising" young man in the lower house (U. B. Phillips, "The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb," Annual Report of the American Historical Association . . . 1911, volume II, 1913, p. 181). He died at Stanton, near Ocala, Florida.

[A few of Stanton's speeches are preserved in pamphlet form in the Library of Congress, and his correspondence with Cass while acting governor is available in Senate Executive Document 8, 35 Congress, 1 Session; see also Congress Globe, 1845-55; Trans. Kansas State Historical Society, volume V (1896); D. W. Wilder, The Annals of Kansas (1875); W. E. Connelley, A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans (1918), volume II; Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 27, 1858; U. S. Magazine and Democratic Review, June 1850; Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Florida Times Union (Jacksonville), June 5, 1894; information concerning family and children from a descendant.]

W. H. S.


STANTON, Henry Brewster, 1805-1887, New York, New York, Cincinnati, Ohio, abolitionist leader, anti-slavery agent, journalist, author.  Worked with William T. Allan and Birney.  Financial Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), Manager, 1834-1838, Corresponding Secretary, 1838-1840, and Executive Committee of the Society, 1838.  Secretary, 1840-1841, and Member of the Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1844.  Leader of the Liberty Party.  Wrote for abolitionist newspapers.  Worked against pro-slavery legislation at state level.  Later edited the New York Sun. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 164, 219, 238-240, 286; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 68, 72, 134, 137, 156, 189, 301; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14016, 18, 28, 36, 45, 47, 101, 162, 223; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 162; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971 p. 63-67, 97, 131, 132; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 649-650.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 649-650:

STANTON, Henry Brewster, journalist, born in Griswold, New London County, Connecticut, 29 June, 1805; died in New York City, 14 January, 1887. His ancestor, Thomas, came to this country from England in 1635 and was crown interpreter-general of the Indian dialects, and subsequently judge of the New London County court. His father was a manufacturer of woollens and a trader with the West Indies. After receiving his education, the son went in 1826 to Rochester, New York, to write for Thurlow Weed's newspaper, “The Monroe Telegraph,” which was advocating the election of Henry Clay to the presidency. He then began to make political speeches. He moved to Cincinnati to complete his studies in Lane Theological Seminary, but left it to become an advocate of the anti-slavery cause. At the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York City in 1834 he faced the first of the many mobs that he encountered in his tours throughout the country. In 1837-'40 he was active in the movement to form the Abolitionists into a compact political party, which was resisted by William Lloyd Garrison and others, and which resulted in lasting dissension. In 1840 he married Elizabeth Cady, and on 12 May of that year sailed with her to London, having been elected to represent the American Anti-Slavery Society at a convention for the promotion of the cause. At its close they travelled through Great Britain and France, working for the relief of the slaves. On his return, he studied law with Daniel Cady, was admitted to the bar, and practised in Boston, where he gained a reputation especially in patent cases, but he abandoned his profession to enter political life, and removing to Seneca Falls, New York, in 1847, represented that district in the state senate. He was a member of the Free-Soil Party previous to the formation of the Republican Party, of which he was a founder. Before this he had been a Democrat. For nearly half a century he was actively connected with the daily press, his contributions consisting chiefly of articles on current political topics and elaborate biographies of public men. Mr. Stanton contributed to Garrison's “Anti-Slavery Standard” and “Liberator,” wrote for the New York “Tribune,” and from 1868 until his death was an editor of the New York “Sun.” Henry Ward Beecher said of him: “I think Stanton has all the elements of old John Adams; able, stanch, patriotic, full of principle, and always unpopular. He lacks that sense of other people's opinions which keeps a man from running against them.” Mr. Stanton was the author of “Sketches of Reforms and Reformers in Great Britain and Ireland” (New York, 1849), and “Random Recollections” (1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 649-650. 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 525:

STANTON, HENRY BREWSTER (June 27, 1805-January 14, 1887), lawyer, reformer, journalist, was born in Griswold, Connecticut. His father, Joseph, a woolen manufacturer and merch ant, traced his ancestry to Thomas Stanton who emigrated to America from England, and about 1637 settled in Connecticut. He was Crown interpreter of the Indian tongues in New England and judge of the New London county court. Henry's mother, Susan Brewster, was a descendant of William Brews ter [q.v.] who arrived on the Mayflower. After studying at the academy in Jewett City, Connecticut, Henry went to Rochester in 1826 to write for Thurlow Weed's Monroe Telegraph, which was then supporting Henry Clay for the presidency. In 1828 he delivered addresses and wrote for the Telegraph in behalf of John Quincy Adams. The next year he became deputy clerk of Monroe County, New York, and continued in that office until 1832, meanwhile studying law and the classics. Converted by Charles G. Finney [q. v.], and having come into contact with Theodore D. Weld [q.v.], he then entered Lane Theological Seminary, in Cincinnati, where in th e fall of 1834 he helped organize an anti-slavery society. This the trustees, who tried to prevent all discussion of the question, opposed, and in consequence about fifty students left, including Stanton (Liberator, January 10, 1835), who at once associated himself with James G. Birney [q.v.] in his anti-slavery work. Soon he was made agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and was later a member of its executive committee.

For many years thereafter he devoted practically all of his time to this reform. He wrote for the Liberator and other abolitionist journals, for religious publications, and for some political papers, including the National Era of Washington and the New York American. He also appeared before many legislative commissions, and made platform speeches from Maine to Indiana. As a speaker he was quick-witted, eloquent, and impassioned, capable of making his hearers laugh as well as weep, and was ranked by many as the ablest anti-slavery orator of his day. His handsome, distinguished appearance, personal charm, and rare conversational powers added to his general popularity. His thunderous denunciations of human bondage subjected him, however, to scores of mob attacks. From 1837 to 1840 he busied himself with trying to get the abolitionists to form a strong political organization, a project which William Lloyd Garrison [q.v.] opposed, thereby causing a permanent break in the relation of the two men. On May 10, 1840, he married Elizabeth Cady [see Elizabeth Cady Stanton], daughter of Judge Daniel Cady [q.v.] of Johnstown, New York; seven children were born to them.

Immediately after his marriage Stanton sailed with his wife for London to attend the World Anti-Slavery Convention, to which he was a delegate. Later, he traveled through Great Britain and Ireland delivering many speeches on the slavery question. One result of this tour was his Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland (1849). Upon his return to the United States he studied law with his father-in- law, was admitted to the bar, and began practising in Boston. Finding the Massachusetts winters too severe for his health, he removed about 1847 to Seneca Falls, New York, making this place his home for the next sixteen years. He was successful at the law, but his continued interest in abolition led him into increased political activity. In 1849 he was elected to the state Senate from Seneca Falls. He was one of the senators who resigned to prevent a quorum in the Senate and the passage of the bill appropriating millions of dollars for the enlargement of the canals. In 1851 he was reelected but was not again a candidate. He helped draft the Free-Soil platform at Buffalo in 1848; in 1855 he helped organize the Republican party in New York State; and in 1856 he campaigned for Fremont. He remained a Republican until Grant's administration, during which he joined the Democrats. After the Civil War he gave most of his time to journalism, being connected with the New York Tribune under the editorship of Greeley, and with the Sun from 1869 to his death. He died in New York City.

[H. B. Stanton, Random Recollections (3rd ed., 1887); Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as Revealed in her Letters, Diary, and Reminiscences (copyright 1922), ed. by Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch; Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimke Weld and Sarah Grimke (2 volumes, copyright 1934); annual reports of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835 ff.; New York Senate Journal and Documents, 1850-51; William Birney, James G. Birney and His Times (1890); W. A. Stanton, A Record ... of Thomas Stanton, of Connecticut, and His Descendants (1891); Liberator (Boston), January 10, 1835; New York Tribune and New York Sun, January 15, 1887.]

M. W. W.


STANWOOD, Atkinson, Newburyport, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1855-60-.


STARR, Isaac H., Delaware, abolitionist and delegate to the Delaware Society for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, Wilmington, Delaware, founded 1789.  Treasurer, Pennsylvania Society for Promoting Abolition of Slavery, 1787. 

(Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. 92, 224, 240; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 76)


STAUGHTON, William, Reverend, 1770-1829, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, clergyman, Baptist educator.  Founding officer of the Philadelphia auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 654-655; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 1, p. 539; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 39)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 654-655:

STAUGHTON, William, clergyman, born in Coventry, Warwickshire, England, 4 January, 1770; died in Washington, D. C., 12 December, 1829. He was graduated at the Baptist theological institution, Bristol, in 1792, and the next year came to this country, landing at Charleston. After preaching for more than a year at Georgetown, South Carolina, he removed to New York city, and thence to New Jersey, residing for some time at Bordentown, where, in 1797, he was ordained, and then at Burlington. At the latter place he remained until 1805, when he accepted a call to the pastorate of the 1st Baptist church of Philadelphia. After a successful ministry there of six years, he identified himself with a new enterprise, which resulted in the formation of a church and the erection of a large house of worship on Sansom street. His pastorate of this church, extending from 1811 till 1822, was one of great success. Besides preaching regularly three times on Sunday and once or twice during the week, he was the principal of a Baptist theological school. In 1822 he was called to the presidency of Columbian college, D. C., which office he resigned in 1827, and was elected in 1829 president of Georgetown college, Kentucky. He died in Washington, while on his way to this new field of service. He was probably the most eloquent Baptist minister of his time in this country. He received from Princeton the degree of D. D. in 1801. Besides a volume of poems, which he issued when he was seventeen years old, his publications consisted of a few occasional sermons and discourses, among them “Eulogium on Dr. Benjamin Rush” (1813). See a “Memoir” by Reverend S. W. Lynd (Boston, 1834). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.