discord into every family in it."

His standing as a lawyer entitled his opinion to respect, and as he went
on to explain the impossibility of reconciling that statute with, the
general tenor of law and precedent, I was gravely apprehensive. The
public mind was not prepared for so great a change; there had been no
general demand for it; lawyers did not know what to do with it, and
judges shook their heads. Indeed, there was so much doubt and opposition
that I feared a repeal, until some months after Col. Kane came to me and
said:

"There is a young lawyer from Steubenville named Stanton who would like
to be introduced to you."

I was in a gracious mood and consented to receive the young lawyer named
Stanton. As he came into the room and advanced toward me, immediately I
felt myself in the presence of a master mind, of a soul born to command.
When introduced he gravely took my hand, and said:

"I called to congratulate you upon the passage of your bill. It is a
change I have long desired to see."

We sat and talked on the subject some time, and my fears vanished into
thin air. If this man had taken that law into favor it would surely
stand, and as he predicted be "improved and enlarged." I have never been
so forcibly impressed by any stranger. His compactness of body and soul,
the clear outlines of face and figure, the terseness of his sentences,
and firmness yet tenderness of his voice, were most striking; and as he
passed down the long room after taking leave my thought was:

"Mr. Stanton you have started for some definite point in life, some high
goal, and you will reach it."

This was prophetic, for he walked into the War Department of this nation
at a time when it is probable no other man in it, could have done the
work there which freedom demanded in her hour of peril, for this young
man was none other than Edwin M. Stanton, the Ajax of the great
Rebellion.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PITTSBURG SATURDAY VISITER.

After the war, abolitionists began to gather their scattered forces and
wanted a Liberty Party organ. To meet this want, Charles P. Shiras
started the _Albatross_ in the fall of '47. He was the "Iron City Poet,"
author of "Dimes and Dollars" and "Owe no Man a Dollar." He was of an
old and influential family, had considerable private fortune, was
courted and flattered, but laid himself and gifts on the altar of
Liberty. His paper was devoted to the cause of the slave and of the free
laborer, and s