Edwin H. Stanton Nearly Became A Dictator After Lincoln's Assassination

Edwin Stanton damn near staged a one-man coup after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theater.

He turned Petersen House into the White House as Lincoln lay dying. He set up a de facto command center in the back bedroom, had guards posted, messengers sprinting, and generals lining up like schoolboys outside the principal’s office. While Vice President Andrew Johnson was reportedly half-drunk, Stanton took charge, “Find Booth,” he said. “Arrest everybody.”

Stanton’s War Department became a full-blown surveillance state with bayonets. He rounded up hundreds of suspected conspirators. One man was arrested for renting John Wilkes Booth a horse. He had newspapers shut down, editors jailed, and mail intercepted.

And if anyone questioned him, he steamrolled them with the Constitution in one hand and a saber in the other. Habeas corpus? Never heard of it.

Stanton ignored Andrew Johnson. He kept control of the military. He handed out appointments, and used the Army to enforce his own policies when Johnson tried to boot him.

When Johnson tried to fire Stanton in 1868, he refused to leave, and barricaded himself in his office at the War Department.

Had Stanton decided to “suspend” democracy for “national security,” the country might’ve gone along with it — we were still reeling from the Civil War, Lincoln was dead, and Andrew Johnson had the charisma of a soggy biscuit. If a strongman was ever going to rise in America, this was the moment. And Stanton was close to seizing it.

In 1869, Ulysses S. Grant offered Stanton a seat on the Supreme Court, and he said yes. The Senate confirmed him. And then… he died four days later. It was probably for the best.

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