Background
Byron Paine was born on October 10, 1827 in Painesville, Ohio, United States. He was the son of James H. and Marilla (Paine) Paine, founded by his mother's grandfather, Edward Paine, a Revolutionary officer from Connecticut.
Byron Paine was born on October 10, 1827 in Painesville, Ohio, United States. He was the son of James H. and Marilla (Paine) Paine, founded by his mother's grandfather, Edward Paine, a Revolutionary officer from Connecticut.
An academy at Painesville gave Byron Paine his formal schooling, which was later supplemented by wide reading, the acquisition of the German language, and the literary training that is afforded by practice in writing for the press. Removing with his father, who was a practising lawyer, to Wisconsin Territory in the year before its admission as a state, he studied law and was admitted to the bar at Milwaukee in 1849.
In the early years of his professional career, when clients were few, Byron Paine did much writing for the Free Democrat, a freesoil newspaper at Milwaukee. He and his father both held the anti-slavery views prevalent at the time on the Western Reserve of Ohio and were sympathetic with the flame of angry protest against the enactment of the Fugitive-Slave Law in 1850. In 1854 he appeared before the state supreme court as counsel for Sherman M. Booth, the editor of the newspaper to which he had contributed, when the rescue of a African-American, Joshua Glover, involved Booth in criminal proceedings. Paine's argument for the granting of a writ of habeas corpus was mainly an attack on the constitutionality of the Fugitive-slave Law (Unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Act. Argument in the Matter of the Petition of Sherman M. Booth for a Writ of Habeas Corpus, n. d. ). The state court granted the writ, but renewed efforts of the federal authorities ended, in 1859, with the decision of the federal Supreme Court upholding the right of the federal authorities to try Booth. Paine expressed in no uncertain terms his own belief in state sovereignty, and the defiance of the federal authorities voiced by the Wisconsin judges and by him was received with acclamation among anti-slavery men everywhere. He reaped a rich harvest of personal popularity in his own state, which culminated in his election, the spring of 1859, as associate justice of the state supreme court on a campaign platform, remarkable in Wisconsin history, of "State Rights and Byron Paine!" Carl Schurz, then a citizen of Wisconsin, came under the spell.
Nevertheless, in 1861, when Lincoln called for men and resources to defend the Union, no state responded more heartily than Wisconsin. In November 1864 Paine resigned from the bench and was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 43rd Wisconsin Volunteers. The next May he resumed his law practice in Milwaukee. In 1867 he was reappointed to a seat on the state supreme bench, to which he was later elected and on which he served until his death. In two opinions, of 1869 and 1870, he made the effort to analyze and set forth the convictions he continued to hold concerning state rights and to point out wherein he understood they differed from the doctrine of the right of secession. The close reasoning and keen exposition of these opinions commanded the respect of his fellow judges and lawyers, most of whom had come wholly to disagree with his view of the once dominant issue. It is noteworthy that a man raised to a judicial station by a popular movement, without regard to his professional qualifications, should have won the confidence and respect of the bar so completely.
Byron Paine was tall and sturdy frame, and his face, not regular of feature, but beautiful in its expression of absolute sincerity, kindness, and intelligence, made his very appearance a picture of strength ruled by reason, justice, and benevolence.
On October 7, 1854 Byron Paine married Clarissa R. (Wyman) Paine. They had five sons.
