y, with a company of friends and a military guard. Several demands
for the office were made by General Thomas, but all were refused. It was
believed the President would send troops to enforce his order, but he
did not proceed to that extremity.

IMPEACHMENT AND ACQUITTAL OF THE PRESIDENT.

On the 24th of February the House of Representatives passed a resolution
to impeach the President. This was simply to accuse or charge him with
the commission of high crimes and misdemeanors. In such cases the trial
must be conducted by the Senate. A committee was appointed to prepare
the articles of impeachment, which, in the main, accused the executive
of violating the civil tenure act in his removal of Secretary Stanton,
though other charges were added.

When the President is impeached, the Constitution provides that his
trial shall take place before the Senate, sitting as a court. The trial
occupied thirty-two days, lasting until May 26th, with Chief Justice
Chase presiding, on which day a vote was taken on the eleventh article
of impeachment. Thirty-five senators voted for acquittal and nineteen
for conviction. One more vote--making the necessary two-thirds--would
have convicted. Ten days later the same vote was given on the other
charges, whereupon a verdict of acquittal was ordered.

[Illustration: A SOUTHERN LEGISLATURE UNDER CARPET-BAG RULE.

The carpet-baggers debauched the negroes, sending some of the most
ignorant of them to the Legislature, where their personal conduct was a
disgrace and they voted away vast sums of money for adventurers who
bribed them with a pittance.]

SAD CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.

The country was in a lamentable condition. Congress censured the
President, who expressed his contempt for that body. General Sheridan,
whom the President had removed from the governorship of Louisiana, was
complimented for his administration, and Congress declared that there
was no valid government in the South, the jurisdiction of which was
transferred to General Grant, the head of the army.

By this time the carpet-baggers had swarmed into the sorely harried
region like so many locusts. They secured the support of the ignorant
blacks, by falsehood and misrepresentations, controlled the State
Legislatures, and had themselves elected to Congress. Enormous debts
were piled up, and negroes, who could not write their names, exultingly
made laws for their former masters, who remained in sullen silence at
their hom