he dictates of my judgment and
for the highest good of my country."

He got his answer:

"Your motives are Indian contracts and greenbacks. Kansas repudiates you
as she does all perjurers and skunks."

The Managers organized an inquisition for the purpose of torturing and
badgering Ross into submission. His one vote was all they lacked.

They laid siege to little Vinnie Ream, the sculptress, to whom Congress
had awarded a contract for the statue of Lincoln. Her studio was in the
crypt of the Capitol. They threatened her with the wrath of Congress, the
loss of her contract, and ruin of her career unless she found a way to
induce Senator Ross, whom she knew, to vote against the President.

Such an attempt to gain by fraud the verdict of a common court of law
would have sent its promoters to prison for felony. Yet the Managers of
this case, before the highest tribunal of the world, not only did it
without a blush of shame, but cursed as a traitor every man who dared to
question their motives.

As the day approached for the Court to vote, Senator Ross remained to
friend and foe a sealed mystery. Reporters swarmed about him, the target
of a thousand eyes. His rooms were besieged by his radical constituents
who had been imported from Kansas in droves to browbeat him into a promise
to convict. His movements day and night, his breakfast, his dinner, his
supper, the clothes he wore, the colour of his cravat, his friends and
companions, were chronicled in hourly bulletins and flashed over the wires
from the delirious Capital.

Chief Justice Chase called the High Court of Impeachment to order, to
render its verdict. Old Stoneman had again been carried to his chair in
the arms of two negroes, and sat with his cold eyes searching the faces of
the judges.

The excitement had reached the highest pitch of intensity. A sense of
choking solemnity brooded over the scene. The feeling grew that the hour
had struck which would test the capacity of man to establish an enduring
Republic.

The Clerk read the Eleventh Article, drawn by the Great Commoner as the
supreme test.

As its last words died away the Chief Justice rose amid a silence that was
agony, placed his hands on the sides of the desk as if to steady himself,
and said:

"Call the roll."

Each Senator answered "Guilty" or "Not Guilty," exactly as they had been
counted by the Managers, until Fessenden's name was called.

A moment of stillness and the great lawyer's vo