GRANT AND COLFAX.

337

from March 5 to May 16, 1868, he was acquitted, those voting guilty being one less in number than the two-thirds necessary for conviction. This has been the only instance of impeachment of a President, and many even of those politically opposed to Johnson thought the measure unwise.

363. Grant and Colfax elected; Amnesty. (1868.) The time had again come to nominate a candidate for the Presidency. The Republican convention, justifying the acts of Congress, went before the country on that issue and nominated General Grant for President and Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, for Vice-President. The Democratic convention attacked the measures and policy of the Republicans, and demanded that the southern states should be restored to all their rights, and that the question of suffrage should be left to the individual states. Horatio Seymour, of New York, and Francis P. Blair, of Missouri, were chosen as candidates. At the election in November, 1868, Grant and Colfax were chosen by a large majority of the electoral votes, as well as of the popular vote. Thus the voice of the people seemed to confirm the action of Congress, but as Grant was at this time the most popular man in the United States, it is likely that thousands voted for him, giving little attention to the political questions involved.

President Johnson, on Christmas Day, 1868, issued a proclamation of "full pardon and amnesty" to those who had been concerned in the "late rebellion." This did not restore political rights, as that had to be done by Congress. The thirteenth amendment to the Constitution had forbidden slavery; the fourteenth had given the freedmen citizenship; and now Congress proposed the fifteenth, which would give the freedmen the right of suffrage.

364. Atlantic Telegraph Cable. (1866.) Alaska bought. (1867.) But political matters, though of surpassing interest, were not the only ones to claim the attention during President Johnson's administration. Cyrus W. Field, of New York, to whom the first Atlantic cable had been due (sect. 290), was by no means discouraged by its failure. He had demonstrated the possibility of a communication under the ocean, and so he set to work to remedy the defects of the early cables, and in the summer of 1866 the immense steamship Great Eastern, with a new cable made in England on board, set sail for America, for the purpose of laying the cable on the way. This was entirely successful, and on the 27th of July the western end was landed at Heart's Content, Newfoundland, and messages were exchanged with Valentia Bay, Ireland. Since that time the telegraphic communication between the old world and the new has never been interrupted. Later on, other cables were laid, until, in 1892, there were ten lines in operation across the North Atlantic alone. The rates of transmission have been so much reduced by competition that it is within the means of almost every one to send messages, while the newspaper press has whole columns of news cabled every day. Trade has been revolutionized by the cable no less than by steam, as through it the market prices of the world are daily reported in the newspaper press.

In 1867 the possessions of Russia in America were bought by the United States for $7,200,000. The territory amounted to about 577,390 square miles.1 It was thought by many at the time a very foolish enterprise, and Secretary Seward, to whom the purchase was largely due, was made the object of much ridicule and chaffing. Time has, however, abundantly justified his action, the rent of the seal fisheries alone being

1 This territory differs from previous annexations in that no part of it touched the boundaries of the United States.