F. Butler, Thomas Williams, John A. Logan and Thaddeus Stevens. They were all lawyers of high standing in their own states, and Butler and Stevens had National reputations, and they all believed in the justice of their cause. The President's counsel were Henry Stanbery, who resigned from the office of Attorney General in order to undertake this case; Benjamin R. Curtis, William M. Evarts, William S. Groesbeck, and T. A. Nelson. Of these, the most distinguished were William M. Evarts, who was at the head of the bar in New York State, and Mr. Curtis, who was six years on the Supreme Court bench, but who resigned in 1857, and had a wide practice throughout the East. Mr. Nelson was the President's personal choice, and Mr. Groesbeck was selected at the suggestion of Mr. Stanbery.

The defense was allowed ten days in which to file an answer to the charges, and the case was formally opened on the 30th of March by a very long argument by Benjamin F. Butler. Mr. Butler went over every legal phase of the subject, but was especially strong in its presentation of the point upon which the House depended for conviction, the intentional violation of the Tenure of Office Act, and of the Constitution, in the removal of Secretary Stanton.

Judge Curtis opened the case for the defense in a masterly argument from the judicial standpoint, and after the evidence was all in, all the other managers and counsel made arguments, most of them of considerable length. It was such a surfeit of oratory as even Washington does not often have. Besides all this twenty-nine Senators filed opinions in the case.

The trial lasted until May 16, when a vote was taken on Article Eleven, resulting in 35 votes of "guilty" and 19 "not guilty." The change of a single vote would have resulted in the conviction of the President. Of the nineteen "not guilty" votes, nine were cast by Senators who were elected as Republicans: Dixon, of Connecticut; Doolittle, of Wisconsin; Fessenden, of Maine; Fowler and Patterson, of Tennessee; Grimes, of Iowa; Henderson, of Missouri; Ross, of Kansas, and VanWinkle, of West Virginia. Of these, Fowler was son-in-law to the President, and Fessenden had been a member of his Cabinet, resigning only after he was elected Senator. Dixon was a natural conservative, as also was Doolittle, who had presided over the Arm-in-Arm Convention, and who soon afterwards left the party. Henderson's politics had been variable, although he was a man of great ability and force of character, and Grimes and Van

Winkle had fallen outside the party breast works on several previous occasions. Patterson and Ross had not been sufficiently prominent in the Senate to be well placed as respects their temperament or political convictions. The opinion of the people, who had watched the trial with a great deal of interest, was sufficiently shown by the fact that not one of the nine was ever again sent to the Senate.

The vote on the Eleventh Article showed that the President could not be convicted on any of the others, and the trial abruptly ended the same day. Secretary Stanton immediately resigned, General John M. Schofield was nominated in his place, and the nomination was confirmed by the Senate.

In view of its failure, the Impeachment proceeding has been often criticised as a mistake. But the criticism is hardly just. No only was there a limit to the patience of Congress, which limit the President had passed, but there was an absolute necessity, for the peace of the country, that a check should be placed upon his re-kless designs. If he had been allowed to override the laws of Congress in this case, it is difficult to see what limit could have been placed upon his revolutionary schemes. The Impeachment trial did not improve his temper, but it sobered him. He was still obstructive, but he ceased to be violent.

Although the Fortieth Congress occupied so much of its time with the Impeachment matter, it accomplished a great deal of important legislation. Aside from the Supplementary Reconstrue tion Acts, it passed the following Acts of general interest: Estab lishing the eight-hour law for laborers and mechanics in the Government employ; prescribing an oath of office for persons whose disabilities have been removed; providing for filling vacancies in the Executive Departments; providing for the discontinuance of the Freedmen's Bureau on the 1st of January, 1869; providing for the establishment of an American line of mail and emigrant steamers between New York and one or more European ports; making important changes in the pension laws; prohibiting the loaning of money on National Bank notes; giving permission to construct a bridge between New York and Brooklyn.

Toward the latter part of Johnson's administration, Secretary Seward rendered to the country his most valuable service, save one, that in which, by his treatment of the Trent affair, he saved us from a war with England. This service was the purchase from Russia of the immense territory known as Alaska. The treaty was made

It was

March 30, 1867, and was confirmed with comparatively little oppos.tion in the Senate. It could not be completed, however, until the House appropriated the purchase money, $7,200.000. This only occurred July 27, 1868, and that after serious opposition. stated in the debates that there were indications of gold in Alaska, but those who favored the purchase advocated it chiefly on the ground that the control of the seal fisheries would be of great value to us, and that our ownership of Alaska would prevent any hostile power from ever getting control of that long stretch of Pacific Coast, so near our own border. There were, for several years, sneers at the purchase, which was called "Seward's iceberg." After a time the value of the seal fisheries began to be appreciated. Within the season of 1899, the value of the gold taken out of the Cape Nome district alone, in a single month, exceeded the purchase price of the whole vast territory.

One of the most important Acts of the Fortieth Congress was the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which came quite the last part of the second session. On the 30th of January, by vote of 150 to 42, it passed the House in the following form: "The right of any citizen of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State, by reason of race, color, or previous condition of slavery of any citizen, or class of citizens, of the United States." The Senate passed a joint resolution for an Amendment to the Constitution, intended to accomplish the same purpose, but it was long, involved in its grammatical construction, and had additional clauses, containing some extraneous matter. This was not acceptable to the House, and the whole subject went to a Committee of Conference, which reported the Amendment in the following concise form: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

This report of the Committee of Conference was agreed to in the House, February 25, 1869, by a vote of 144 to 44, and in the Senate, the next day, by a vote of 39 to 13. In a little over a year

the Amendment was ratified by a sufficient number of states, and on the 30th of March, 1870, Secretary Fish proclaimed its adoption as part of the Constitution.

This action has often been criticised as being premature, but the need of it appeared to be very great. Between the November elec

tions and the time Congress adjourned, authenticated reports reached Washington of numerous outrages upon white Republicans. Intimidation and violence and even murder were resorted to. In Louisiana, where the condition of affairs was the worst, it was said that 2,000 persons were killed or seriously injured within a few weeks previous to election. It was partly to give the white Republicans efficient allies, and partly to furnish the blacks with the means of self defense, that the Amendment was adopted. Of its necessity General Grant said in his memoirs: "I do not believe that the majority of the Northern people, at the time, were in favor of negro suffrage. They supposed that it would naturally follow the freedom of the negro, but that there would be a time of probation, in which the ex-slaves could prepare themselves for the privileges of citizenship, before the full right would be conferred; but Mr. Johnson, after a complete revolution of sentiment, seemed to regard the South not only as an oppressed people but as the people best entitled to consid eration of any of our citizens. This was more than the people who had secured to us the perpetuation of the Union were prepared for, and they became more radical in their views. The Southerners had the most power in the executive branch, Mr. Johnson having gone to their side, and with a compact South, and such sympathy and support as they could get from the North, they felt that they would be able to control the nation at once, and already many of them acted as if they thought they were entitled to do so.

"Thus Mr. Johnson, fighting Congress on the one hand, and receiving the support of the South on the other, drove Congress, which was overwhelmingly Republican, to the passing of first one measure and then another, to restrict his power. There being a solid South on one side, that was in accord with the political party in the North which had sympathized with the Rebellion, it finally, in the judgment of Congress and of the majority of the Legislatures of the states, became necessary to enfranchise the negro in all his ignorance. In this work I shall not discuss the question of how far the policy of Congress in this particular proved a wise one. It became an absolute necessity, however, because of the foolhardiness of the President, and the blindness of the Southern people to their own interest. As to myself, while strongly favoring the course that would be the least humiliating to the people who had been in rebellion, I had gradually worked up to the point where, with the majority of the people, I favored immediate enfranchisement."

XVII

THE FOURTH REPUBLICAN CONVENTION.

The Party at Sea With Regard to a Candidate-A Gradual Turning Toward Grant-His Discretion During Johnson's Career-Meeting of the Chicago Convention-Delegates From the Soldiers' and Sailors' Convention-A Ringing, Patriotic and National Platform Adopted-General Logan's Brief and Appropriate Presentation of Grant's Name-The General Unanimously Nominated--Six Ballots for Vice-President-Speaker Colfax Finally Wins A Michigan Incident in Connection With the ContestBrief and Timely Letters of Acceptance-Grant's Deference to the Popular Wishes.

The campaign of 1868 was approached under peculiar conditions. Although the Republican party had been solidified, rather than divided, by its contest with President Johnson, it was a good deal at sea with reference to a candidate. Some of its old idols had been shattered. Seward, who, in 1860, was the most popular man in the party, had impaired confidence in his judgment by his course during the first part of the Lincoln Administration, and had made final wreck of his political fortunes by attaching himself so closely to President Johnson's abortive schemes. Chase, although Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, still had political ambitions, but he was already showing signs of restiveness in his Republicanism. William M. Evarts, who was more lawyer than politician, but who had sometimes been talked of as a possible candidate, had gone, along with Weed and Raymond into the Arm-in-arm Movement. The influence of that section of the party in New York which was of Whig origin, and which was once all powerful, had ceased to be a factor of any consequence at all in Republican politics. The political firm