And in 1854, when Booth was on trial for violating the Fugitive Slave Act, Paine represented him as his lawyer without compensation.

Paine argued on his behalf in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in the case of Ableman v.

Paine won the case and became the only lawyer to successfully argue that fugitive slave laws violated the sovereignty of the northern states.

[2] Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward George Ryan, who had opposed Paine in the Booth case as attorney for the United States, said of him:[2] The first opportunity I had of forming an estimate of his high ability, was in the famous case under the fugitive slave act, in 1854 and 1855.

[4] The regiment was assigned to Tennessee to defend railroad and supply lines, and saw some combat during the Franklin–Nashville Campaign near the end of the war.

Paine argued that Wisconsin had granted voting rights to African Americans through an 1849 law and referendum, which had been ignored for the previous 17 years.

While living in Painesville, Ohio, he was a member of an 1834 citizens committee assigned to investigate the origin of the Book of Mormon—their finding was that it was a fiction.

Paine died at age 44 on January 13, 1871, at his home in Monona, Wisconsin, after suffering for two months from Erysipelas and Pneumonia.