capitalists on both sides of the Atlantic were found willing to make loans on the credit of various Southern States. These moneys were applied only in very small measure to the uses of the States in whose name they were obtained; the larger portion was feloniously appropriated by the unscrupulous persons whose position gave them the opportunity of doing so. Afterwards, when the fraud was fully exposed, the defrauded States repudiated the obligation to repay moneys which they had not received, and which, as they averred, had been borrowed by persons who were in no sense their servants. The good name of the South suffered deeply and her recovery was seriously hindered by these unhappy transactions. The inevitable difficulties of reconstruction were seriously aggravated by the violent conflict of opinion which raged between President Johnson and Congress. The President would not sanction the conditions which Congress considered it necessary to make with the South, and he steadily vetoed all measures which were at variance with his theory that the rebels were entitled to be received without stipulation. His resistance was not practically important, for the country was united, and Congress was able to pass all its measures over the veto of the President. The irritation caused by his opposition to the public wish grew, however, so intense, that it led to his impeachment and trial before the Senate, with a view to his forcible removal from office. His enemies failed to secure a conviction, although they came so near that one additional hostile vote would have brought Mr. Johnson’s presidency to an abrupt close. So smoothly does the constitutional machinery of America now move, that the trial and expected deposition of the head of the government were not felt either by the commercial interests of the country or in the carrying on of public business. For five years after the end of the war some of the Southern States continued to refuse the terms insisted upon by the inflexible North, and continued to endure the evils of military rule. Gradually, however, as time soothed the bitterness of defeat, they withdrew their refusal and consented to resume their position in the Union on the conditions which were offered to them. In 1870 President Grant was able to announce the completed restoration of the Union which his own leadership had done so much to save.