He was prosecuted and acquitted of libel in September 1879 following charges by William Walker Scranton, general manager of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company, who objected to newspaper articles published in August 1878.

Stanton commenced practice in Scranton, an industrial city in the anthracite region of northeastern Pennsylvania.

[8] Stanton was elected as a Democrat to the 44th United States Congress, filling the vacancy caused by the resignation of Republican Winthrop W. Ketcham, appointed as a federal judge.

After three men were killed by a mayor-appointed group known as the Citizens' Corps, Patrick Mahon, alderman of the Sixth Ward, acted as county coroner to investigate the deaths, assisted by Stanton.

[13][17] The New York Times reported later that fellow Democrats in the Assembly had begun impeachment proceedings against Stanton in retaliation for his snubbing Daniel Dougherty and other important Philadelphia counsel in an unfavorable ruling, and he resigned rather than being forced out.

[15] He filed a libel suit against Aaron Augustus Chase, editor of the Scranton Daily Times and a colleague of Stanton.

Implicated by witnesses in the scandal (and thought by some to have written the article in Labor Advocate, Stanton was arrested and prosecuted for libel.

A separate libel trial of Chase resulted in his conviction and being sentenced to a fine and jail time.

[19] After leaving the bench, Stanton became an organizer of the reform Greenback and Labor movements,[20][21] which had a peak of influence in this area in the late 1870s and early 1880s, extending into the Southern Tier of New York.