Ordered, That further consideration of the motion be posponed until Monday at 12 o'clock. Mr. McCaskill moved that the motion be laid upon the table. The yeas and nays were called for, with the following result: Those voting in the affirmitive were: Messrs. Adams, Atkins, Billings, Crawford, Eagan, Henderson, Hill, Hunt, Johnson, Kendrick, McKinnon, Meacham, McCaskill, Sutton Weeks and Wentworth-16. So the motion was laid upon the table. Upon the original order of Mr. Henderson, The yeas and nays were called for with the following result: Those voting in the affirmative were: Messrs. Billings, Crawford, Eagan, Henderson, Hunt, Johnson, Kendrick, McKinnon, McCaskill and Sutton-10. Those voting in the negative were: Messrs. Adams, Atkins, Hill, Meacham, Purman Weeks and Wentworth-7. So the order was adopted. The Chief Justice then declared, as a legal consequence of the adoption of said order, Harrison Reed, Governor, discharged from custody. The Senate chamber was packed to overflowing, both with the excited friends of Governor Reed and those of the conspirators during the roll-call on the motion to discharge the Governor, and the casual spectator could readily distinguish the contending factions by their demeanor as the roll was proceeded with. Whenever a Senator would answer yea, as his name was called, the conspirators and their friends would flinch and dodge as though they were engaged in a stiff skirmish line of battle with Reed and his friends, and each contending foe was not firing at the advancing column, but at his individual man. name of Dennis Eagan, of Madison, was reached, and he answered yea, Cessna, the chairman of the Board of Manageer, threw his hands across his head and wrung them as though he was suffering the most excruciating pains. Purman ran to prevent the Secretary from returning the vote as recorded, but the Chief Justice paid no attention to him, and ordered the vote to be returned. When the Chief Justice announced that Governor Reed was discharged, men could be seen in every direction run While ning and shouting at the top of their voices that Reed was again. Governor of Florida. The Board of Managers looked around for its chairman to lead them back to the Assembly hall, but he could not be found, so the balance of the managers deem it wise to get away the best they can, and they retreat in confusion, the counsel for the managers leading the retreat. Governor Reed marched into the Executive office and took possession. the Senate was struggling to get a final vote on the motion to discharge, Day, now filled with anguish, was pacing back and forth, first to the door of the Executive chamber and peeping out for his messenger, and then back into the office. When the messenger came running with the dreadful intelligence which was the end of his career as Governor, so anxious was he to know the result that he did not wait his arrival, but ran to meet him and asked: "How is it?" "Reed's discharged." He turned his back on the messenger and wept. At this session of the Legislature, C. H. Pearce, the great colored leader, who had been convicted by the conspirators on a trumped up charge of offering a bribe, was turned out of the Senate. Bolling Baker and J. B. C. Drew, who defended him, instead of making the point that the carrying of a message for another was no crime, made the point that the indictment read "the jurors," instead of "the grand jurors." This point was properly overruled by the court below and affirmed by the Supreme Court. When the vote was taken to declare Pearce's seat vacant, Purman, who expected to come before the freedmen again for office, and fearing Pearce would remind them as to how he voted, left the Senate to avoid his name appearing as one of those who voted to turn Pearce out, and the Senate passed a resolution stating that fact. (See Senate journal, p. 20). Nothing of importance was transacted by either branch of the Legislature at this extra session, after the discharge of GovReed, but the appointment of J. P. C. Emmons Attorney-General. Both Houses adjourned sine die May 6th. ernor CHAPTER XIV. The Supplicant Conspirators. The Conspirators Capture the Republican Convention of 1872, but Completely Exonerate Governor Reed. Bloxham Nominated for Governor by the Democrats, and the Ring Desperate. Canvass of the Vote. The Election of Hart and the Governor Reed, who had been slandered, persecuted, pursued and hunted like the partridge upon the mountain by the Osborn conspirators, because he had interrupted their systematized plan for wholesale plunder, was now at the head of the government, with all the appointing power in his hands, in which situation he could have had himself re-elected, or could have turned the State over to the Democrats if he had possessed the weakness of nine-tenths of humanity to avenge themselves for wrongs perpetrated upon them whenever opportunity offered; but the Governor, following the teachings of the good book, which declares " vengeance is mine, I will repay," was determined to pass the scepter of the State into the hands of a decent Republican if possible. The conspirators were well aware that Reed stood with flaming sword in hand between the gubernatorial chair and the Bureau-agent, M. L. Stearns, now began to beseech him humbly for quarter. Day, the fraudulent Lieutenant, Governor, was the first to do him reverence. He appeared at the Executive Office Nicodemus-like in the night, subsequent to the day Governor Reed was discharged, confessed his sins and asked forgiveness of the Governor. He informed him that he was misled by the other conspirators, and that he knew from the first that the Articles of Impeachment were only fabrications invented by Dockray, Osborn and Company, that he was forced to play his part for fear that the conspirators, who were instrumental in counting him in, might assist Bloxham in getting him out. Governor Reed, with much vehemence, said: "Then you were willing to disgrace me, who was elected by the people, with falsehood, to sustain a corrupt ring, and yourself, when you knew that you never were elected Lieutenant-Governor. Your days as Lieutenant-Governor are numbered." Day saw that the Governor was not quite disposed to shield him from the pro ceedings then pending before the Supreme Court in regard to his title as Lieutenant-Governor, retired from the Executive Office in dispair. Chief Osborn was the next to offer supplication. His term of office would expire at the end of Governor Reed's administration, and he did not see his way clear, as all of Governor Reed's troubles had originated from him. He suggested to the Governor the proposition of going in with him from henceforth, the honor and spoils to be equally divided between them. Governor Reed made this the occasion of opening the door of the pent up prison house of his thought, and with quivering voice he said: "Go in with you, who have so often attempted to disgrace me and my adminissration! Go in with you, who have brought dishonor on the Republican party of Florida, so that it is a stink in the nostrils of decent people! Go in with you, and your gang of plunderers and freebooters, who, except for the intervention of the Executive would have bankrupted the State for generations unborn! Go in with you, whose conduct, even since you were elected to the Senate of the United States, has been one continued effort to breed a conflict between the two races! Go in with you, who have caused me to be bankrupt in trying to allay the excitement which you and your Federal office holders have aroused among the freedmen! Palsied be my tongue should it sanction such an agreement, and withered be my hands if they should be used to carry out any agreement entered into by me with such an unprincipled wretch as you." Osborn, who now saw that Governor Reed could not be brought to his support, under any consideration, took leave of him and invented another scheme. The Osborn conspirators, now thoroughly convinced that Reed was a very dangerous animal to deal with, invented a second plan to get control of the State Government. Although they had heretofore warned the freedmen against trusting any Southern man, be he Republican or Democrat, and had driven some of the Southern Republicans to the Democrats, some to sympathize with the Democrats, some on the half-way ground, and a majority in the dangerous attitude of silent lookers-on, they now made a complete change of front, and pitched upon O. B. Hart, a Southern Loyalist, an ex-slaveholder, a native of Florida, who |