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. [Sidenote: =The Territories.=] 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. [Sidenote: =Purchase of Alaska.=] 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. [Sidenote: =Reconstruction.=]