We place the ground of defense here on the same ground and limited by the same means as the right of personal defense. If a man be assailed, his power to slay the assailant is not limited to the moment when the mortal blow is about to be given; he is not bound to wait till his life is on the very point of being taken; but any movement toward the foul purpose plainly indicated justifies him in the right of self-defense, and in slaying the assailant on the spot. The theory in our case is, that here was a man living in a constant state of adultery with the prisoner's wife; a man who was daily by a moral, no, by an immoral power-a power enormous, monstrous and altogether unparalleled in the history of American society, or in the history of the family of man-over the being of this woman, calling her from her husband's house, dragging her day by day through the streets in order that he might gratify his lust. The husband beholds him in the very act of withdrawing his wife from his roof, from his presence, from his arm, from his wing, from his nest-meets him in the act and slays him. And we say that the right to slay him stands on the firmest principles of self-defense.

Prolonged and enthusiastic applause greeted Stanton at the close of his address, which the court was unable to suppress. On the twentieth day of the trial the case was submitted to the jury, who within an hour returned with a verdict of NOT GUILTY. The audience, rising, cheered vociferously as Sickles and Stanton passed out to their carriage.*

*Sickles, whose love and friendship for Stanton never abated, took his beautiful young wife again to his arms, and a son born to him by his second wife was named Stanton Sickles.

CHAPTER XIV.

A NEW HOME-ELECTION OF 1860.

The trial of Sickles had hardly ended before Stanton reentered the reaping-machine litigation as attorney for Obed Hussey, who sued C. H. McCormick for infringement of his patent upon the scalloped sickle and open fingers of the cutter-bar of a harvester. In behalf of his client he visited Cincinnati, Chicago, Cleveland, and other cities, making an argument before Justice McLean and Judge Drummond and winning his case.

In May, 1859, while the reaper suits were pending, he won what is said to be the first successful suit to compel a municipal corporation to pay interest on railway bonds which it had guaranteed as a bonus to promote the construction of the bonded road. The suit was brought against Pittsburg in 1858 by Oelrichs and Company of New York City, holders of guaranteed bonds, and was concluded in the United States court in favor of the plaintiffs.

In October, 1859, he purchased seven thousand three hundred and fifty square feet of land on the north side of K Street fronting Primrose Hill (now Franklin Square) in Washington, for five thousand eight hundred and eighty dollars. The location is one of the choicest in the national capital. Thereon, partly with money given to Mrs. Stanton by her father, and according to her plans, a large brick and stone house was erected and occupied in 1860.

William Stanton Buchanan, who grew up with him, says: "Stanton loved with an everlasting love the friends of his youth and the place of his birth." That is true. At the same time that he erected the Washington residence, he purchased for three thousand five hundred dollars the large Andrews house in Steubenville, in which his first wife had died and which he had since maintained as a home for his mother, the widow and children of his brother Darwin, and his sister Oella and her children. He thought that, when

the stormier period of life had passed, he might desire to return to Steubenville to rest and to die.

In the meantime, during 1860, the leading claimants who had been defeated by him in California, appealed their cases, and he was preparing for their argument or arguing them before the United States Supreme Court. Thus with reaper cases, railroad suits, the California land claims, and other litigation, his time was occupied within his office almost night and day, while without the nation was racked by a heated, five-sided presidential contest. The candidates were Lincoln and Hamlin, Douglas and Johnson, Bell and Everett, Breckinridge and Lane, and Sam Houston and "his old Indian blanket."

Personally he was friendly with and esteemed the candidate for president on the Southern ticket, Vice-President Breckinridge, but thought he ought not, for the sake of the nation, being a sectional nominee, to win. He knew little of the Republican nominee, but, fearing that the radical abolition leaders who were supporting him could not be more effectually restrained than the ultra StateSovereignty adherents of Breckinridge, believed that Lincoln, too, ought to be defeated. He hoped that the election of Douglas, who was not particularly in favor with either the pro-slavery or antislavery faction, might be a golden mean to avert present disaster, permit the nation to cool down, and lead its contending sections to come to a peaceable and perhaps ultimately satisfactory arrangement.

However, he frequently expressed the opinion that "Lincoln would be victorious by a narrow margin and become a minority president," concluding a business letter to his Pittsburg partner, Charles Shaler, on July 2, 1860, thus: "There is much suppressed excitement over the political situation. The Democrats are so entirely divided that none of their candidates can win, in my opinion. The Western railsplitter will be technically elected, and we shall see great dissension."

Lincoln carried 17 States, receiving 180 electoral and 1,866,352 popular votes; Breckinridge carried 11 States, receiving 72 electoral votes and 845,763 popular votes; Douglas carried 2 States, receiving 12 electoral and 1,375,157 popular votes; Bell carried 3 States, receiving 39 electoral and 589,581 popular votes; Houston and "his old Indian blanket" were forgotten.