atives of ability, were appointed as
members of this committee. Since the duty devolved upon it of taking
testimony in regard to the impeachment of the President, this
committee attracted public attention to a degree never known before.

The interests of manufactures were not likely to suffer in the hands
of a committee in which the first place was held by James K. Moorhead,
tanner's apprentice, and pioneer of cotton manufactures in
Pennsylvania, and the second by Oakes Ames, a leading manufacturer of
Massachusetts.

Agriculture--the most gigantic material interest in America--was
intrusted to a committee having John Bidwell, of California, as its
chairman, and members chosen from Iowa, Indiana, Vermont, Ohio,
Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York.

The chairmanship of the Committee on Military Affairs was bestowed
upon a major-general of volunteers from Ohio, Robert C. Schenck; while
membership on the committee was given to a Connecticut colonel, Henry
C. Deming; a New Hampshire brigadier-general, Gilman Marston; a
Kentucky major-general, Lovell H. Rousseau; a New York Colonel, John
H. Ketchum, and four civilians.

Nathaniel P. Banks, Henry J. Raymond, and other men of much ability,
were appointed on the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Special committees were appointed on the important subjects of
Bankruptcy and the Freedmen. Of the committee on the former, Thomas A.
Jenckes was appointed chairman. Thomas D. Eliot, of Massachusetts, was
made chairman of the Committee on the Freedmen.

Many other committees were appointed whose labors were arduous and
necessary to our legislation, yet, as they had to do with subjects of
no great general interest, they need not be named.

There was another committee, however, of great importance whose
members were not yet designated. The resolution by which it should be
created, was yet to pass through the ordeal of discussion. The process
by which this committee was created will be described in the following
chapter.

CHAPTER III.

FORMATION OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON RECONSTRUCTION.

Lack of Excitement -- Cause -- The Resolution -- Dilatory
Motions -- Yeas and Nays -- Proposed Amendments in the
Senate -- Debate in the Senate -- Mr. Howard -- Mr. Anthony
-- Mr. Doolittle -- Mr. Fessenden -- Mr. Saulsbury -- Mr.
Hendricks -- Mr. Trumbull -- Mr. Guthrie -- Passage of the
Resolution in the Senate -- Yeas and Nays -- Remarks of Mr.