page_title: Edwin Stanton
section_title: Daniel Sickles trial
hierarchical_section_title: Edwin Stanton / Rising attorney (1839—1860) / Daniel Sickles trial
caption_attribution_description: English: Harper's Weekly engraving of the Dan Sickles murder trial in Washington, D.C., 1859.
context_page_description: Edwin McMasters Stanton was an American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during most of the American Civil War. Stanton's management helped organize the massive military resources of the North and guide the Union to victory. However, he was criticized by many Union generals, who perceived him as overcautious and micromanaging. He also organized the manhunt for Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
  After Lincoln's assassination, Stanton remained as the Secretary of War under the new US president, Andrew Johnson, during the first years of Reconstruction. He opposed the lenient policies of Johnson towards the former Confederate States. Johnson's attempt to dismiss Stanton ultimately led to Johnson being impeached by the Radical Republicans in the House of Representatives. Stanton returned to law after he retired as Secretary of War. In 1869, he was nominated as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by Johnson's successor, Ulysses S. Grant, but Stanton died four days after his nomination was confirmed by the Senate.
context_section_description: Daniel Sickles was a member of the United States House of Representatives from New York. He was married to Teresa Bagioli Sickles, the daughter of composer Antonio Bagioli. Sickles' wife had begun an affair with Philip Barton Key, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and the son of Francis Scott Key, writer of The Star-Spangled Banner. On Sunday, February 27, 1859, Sickles confronted Key in Lafayette Square, declaring, "Key, you scoundrel, you have dishonored my home; you must die", then shot Key to death. Sickles then went to the home of Attorney General Black and admitted his crime. The subsequent Thursday he was charged with murder by a grand jury. The Sickles affair gained nationwide media attention for both its scandalous nature and its proximity to the White House. Soon, the press speculated that Daniel Sickles' political esteem was on the account of an affair between his wife and President Buchanan. Prominent criminal lawyer James T. Brady and his partner, John Graham, came to Sickles' defense, and solicited Stanton to join their team.
  Arguments for the trial began on April 4. The prosecution wanted to advance the theory that Sickles had also committed adultery and did not pay very much mind to his wife or her activities. When the judge disallowed this, the prosecution opted instead to highlight the heinous nature of Sickles' murder, and not address his reasons for doing the crime. Sickles' defense countered that Sickles had suffered from a temporary bout of insanity, the first such instance of an insanity plea in American jurisprudence. The events in the courtroom during the trial were nothing if not dramatic. When Stanton delivered closing arguments, stating that marriage is sacred and that a man should have the right to defend his marriage against those who chose to defile the purity of the sacrament, the courtroom erupted in cheers. A law student described Stanton's argument during the trial, "a typical piece of Victorian rhetoric, an ingenious thesaurus of aphorisms on the sanctity of the family." The jury in the case deliberated for just over an hour before declaring Sickles not guilty. The judge ordered that Sickles be released from his arrest. Outside the courthouse, Sickles, Stanton and company met a throng of individuals in adulation of the victory.
caption: A depiction of the scene in the courtroom during Daniel Sickles' trial
exif: {}