ON the day after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, Andrew Johnson became President of the United States. He was a native of Raleigh, North Carolina—born in 1808. With no advantages of education, he passed his boyhood in poverty. In 1828 he removed to Greenville, Tennessee, where he soon rose to distinction, and was elected to Congress. As a member of the United States Senate in 1860-61, he opposed secession with all his powers. In 1862 he was appointed military governor of Tennessee. This office he held until he was nominated for the vice-presidency.

2. On the 1st of February, 1865, Congress adopted an amendment to the Constitution by which slavery was abolished throughout the Union. By the 18th of the following December, the amendment had been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-seven States, and was duly proclaimed as a part of the Constitution. The emancipation proclamation had been issued as a military necessity; and the results of the instrument were now incorporated in the fundamental law of the land.

3. On the 29th of May, the Amnesty Proclamation was issued by the President. By its provisions a pardon was extended to all persons—except those specified in certain classes—who had taken part in upholding the Confederacy. During the summer of 1865, the great armies were disbanded, and the victors and vanquished returned to their homes to resume the works of peace.

4. The finances of the nation were in an alarming condition. The war-debt went on increasing until the beginning of 1866. The yearly interest grew to a hundred and thirty-three million dollars in gold. The expenses of the government had reached two hundred millions of dollars annually. But the revenues of the nation proved sufficient to meet these enormous outlays, and at last the debt began to diminish.

5. During the civil war, the emperor Napoleon III. succeeded in setting up a French empire in Mexico. In 1864 the Mexican crown was conferred on Maximilian of Austria, who sustained his authority with French and Austrian soldiers. But the Mexican president Juarez headed a revolution; the government of the United States rebuked France for her conduct; Napoleon withdrew his army; Maximilian was overthrown; and eventually, on the 13th of June, 1867, was tried and condemned to be shot. Six days afterwards the sentence was carried into execution.

6. After a few weeks of successful operation, the first Atlantic telegraph had ceased to work. But Mr. Field continued to advocate his measure and to plead for assistance both in Europe and America. He made fifty voyages across the Atlantic, and finally secured sufficient capital to lay a second cable. The work began from the coast of Ireland in the summer of 1865; but the first cable parted and was lost. In July of 1866 a third cable, two thousand miles in length, was coiled in the Great Eastern, and again the vessel started on its way. This time the work was completely successful. Mr. Field received a gold medal from Congress, and the plaudits of all civilized nations.

7. In March of 1861, the Territory of Dakota, destined after twenty-eight years to become two great states, was detached from Nebraska and given a distinct organization. The State of Kansas had at last, on the 29th of January, 1861, been admitted into the Union, under a constitution framed at Wyandotte. In February, 1863, Arizona was separated from New Mexico, and on the 3d of March, in that year, Idaho was organized out of portions of Dakota, Nebraska, and Washington Territories. On the 26th of May, 1864, Montana was cut off from Idaho. On the 1st of March, 1867, Nebraska was admitted into the Union as the thirty-seventh State. Finally, on the 25th of July, 1868, the Territory of Wyoming was organized out of portions of Dakota, Idaho, and Utah.

8. The year 1867 was signalized by the Purchase of Alaska. Two years previously, the territory had been explored by a corps of scientific men with a view of establishing telegraphic communication with Asia. The explorers found that the coast-fisheries were of great value, and that the forests of white pine and yellow cedar were among the finest in the world. Negotiations for the purchase were at once opened, and on the 30th of March, 1867, a treaty was concluded by which, for the sum of seven million two hundred thousand dollars, Russia ceded Alaska to the United States. The territory embraced an area of five hundred and eighty thousand square miles, and a population of twenty-nine thousand souls.

9. Very soon after his accession, a serious disagreement arose between the President and Congress. The difficulty grew out of the question of reorganizing the Southern States. The point in dispute was the relation which those States had sustained to the Federal Union during the civil war. The President held that the ordinances of secession were null and void, and that the seceded States had never been out of the Union. The majority in Congress held that the acts of secession were illegal and unconstitutional, but that the seceded States had been actually detached from the Union, and that special legislation was necessary in order to restore them to their former relations.

10. In 1865, measures of reconstruction were begun by the President. On the 9th of May, a proclamation was issued for the restoration of Virginia to the Union. Twenty days later a provisional government was established over South Carolina; and similar measures were adopted in respect to the other States of the Confederacy. On the 24th of June, all restrictions on trade and intercourse with the Southern States were removed. On the 7th of September a second amnesty proclamation was issued, by which all persons who had upheld the Confederate cause—excepting the leaders—were unconditionally pardoned. Meanwhile, Tennessee had been reorganized, and in 1866 was restored to its place in the Union. When Congress convened, a committee of fifteen members was appointed, to which were referred all questions concerning the reorganization of the Southern States. In accordance with measures reported by this committee, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina were reconstructed, and in June and July of 1868 readmitted into the Union. Congress had, in the mean time, passed the Civil Rights Bill, by which the privileges of citizenship were conferred on the freedmen of the South. All of these congressional enactments were effected over the veto of the President.

11. Meanwhile, a difficulty had arisen in the President's cabinet which led to his impeachment. On the 21st of February, 1868, he notified Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, of his dismissal from office. The act was regarded by Congress as a usurpation of authority and a violation of law. On the 3d of March, articles of impeachment were agreed to by the House of Representatives, and the President was summoned before the Senate for trial. Proceedings began on the 23d of March and continued until the 26th of May, when the President was acquitted. Chief-Justice Salmon P. Chase, one of the most eminent of American statesmen and jurists, presided during the impeachment.

12. The time for another presidential election was already at hand. General Ulysses S. Grant was nominated by the Republicans, and Horatio Seymour, of New York, by the Democrats. The canvass was one of great excitement. The questions most discussed by the political speakers were those arising out of the civil war. The principles advocated by the majority in Congress furnished the Republican platform of 1868, and on that platform General Grant was elected by a large majority. As Vice-president, Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, was chosen.