Category:   Union Statesman     Born:   1814       Died:   1869

Overview:

Was Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of War.

Biography:

In 1860, Edwin M. Stanton was appointed the Attorney General for the last remaining months of James Buchanan’s administration. He left office upon the inaugural of Abraham Lincoln but later accepted the post of Secretary of War for the sixteenth president. He performed well in the job, and was kept on when Andrew Johnson assumed the Presidency after Lincoln’s assassination. Stanton and Johnson did not get along, and in 1868, Johnson removed Stanton as head of the War Department on grounds of disloyalty. Congress claimed Johnson violated the Tenure in Office Act by removing Stanton, and tried to impeach Johnson. After Johnson survived the impeachment trial, Stanton resigned his office and returned to private legal practice. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Stanton to the Supreme Court in 1869, but he died before he could take to oath of office. He is buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D. C.

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