refusing to speak to her or permit her to enter her father's
room.

His illness made it necessary to choose an assistant to conduct the case
before the High Court. There was but one member of the House whose
character and ability fitted him for the place--General Benj. F. Butler,
of Massachusetts, whose name was enough to start a riot in any assembly in
America.

His selection precipitated a storm at the Capitol. A member leaped to his
feet on the floor of the House and shouted:

"If I were to characterize all that is pusillanimous in war, inhuman in
peace, forbidden in morals, and corrupt in politics, I could name it in
one word--Butlerism!"

For this speech he was ordered to apologize, and when he refused with
scorn they voted that the Speaker publicly censure him. The Speaker did
so, but winked at the offender while uttering the censure.

John A. Bingham, of Ohio, who had been chosen for his powers of oratory to
make the principal speech against the President, rose in the House and
indignantly refused to serve on the Board of Impeachment with such a man.

General Butler replied with crushing insolence:

"It is true, Mr. Speaker, that I may have made an error of judgment in
trying to blow up Fort Fisher with a powder ship at sea. I did the best I
could with the talents God gave me. An angel could have done no more. At
least I bared my own breast in my country's defence--a thing the
distinguished gentleman who insults me has not ventured to do--his only
claim to greatness being that, behind prison walls, on perjured testimony,
his fervid eloquence sent an innocent American mother screaming to the
gallows."

The fight was ended only by an order from the old Commoner's bed to
Bingham to shut his mouth and work with Butler. When the President had
been crushed, then they could settle Kilkenny-cat issues. Bingham obeyed.

When the august tribunal assembled in the Senate Chamber, fifty-five
Senators, presided over by Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court, constituted the tribunal. They took their seats in a semicircle in
front of the Vice-president's desk at which the Chief Justice sat. Behind
them crowded the one hundred and ninety members of the House of
Representatives, the accusers of the ruler of the mightiest Republic in
human history. Every inch of space in the galleries was crowded with
brilliantly dressed men and women, army officers in gorgeous uniforms, and
the pomp and splendour of the mi