Perhaps the most surprising thing he did—especially to his children—was that he married a woman twenty-five years younger than him, Mary Scott Lord Dimmick, his first wife’s niece. His children adamantly opposed the union. He also resumed the practice of law and wrote a great deal. He served as counsel for the country of Venezuela in a border dispute with British Guiana. President William McKinley appointed him to the Permanent Court of Arbitration.