It relates, the title shall be followed by the words "accepted by the city," or "cities," as the case may be ; in every such law which is passed without such acceptance, by the words "passed without the acceptance of the city," or "cities." as the case may be. [Amendment voted on in 1907.] SECTION III. All elections of city officers, including supervisors and judicial officers of inferior local Election of city courts, elected in any city or part of a city, and of county officers elected in the counties of New York and officers. Kings, and in all counties whose boundaries are the same as those of a city, except to fill vacancies, shall be held on the Tuesday succeeding the first Monday in November in an odd-numbered year, and the term of every such officer shall expire at the end of an odd-numbered year. The terms of office of all such officers elected before the first day of January, 1895, whose successors have not then been elected, which under existing laws would expire with an even numbered year, or in an odd-numbered year and before the end thereof, are extended to and including the last day of December next following the time when such terms would otherwise expire; the terms of office of all such officers, which under existing laws would expire in an even-numbered year, and before the end thereof, are abridged so as to expire at the end of the preceding year. This section shall not apply to any city of the third class, or to elections, of any judicial officer, except judges and justices of inferior local courts. The oath of office. Acceptance of a bribe. Promise or offer of a bribe. Persons accused of bribery. Free passes for bidden. District-At ARTICLE XIII. SECTION 1. Members of the Legislature, and all officers, executive and judicial, except such inferior officers as shall be by law exempted, shall, before they enter on the duties of their respective offices, take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of New York, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of -, according to the best of my ability;" and all such officers who shall have been chosen at any election shall, before they enter on the duties of their respective offices, take and subscribe the oath or affirmation above prescribed, together with the following addition thereto, as part thereof: "And I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have not directly or indirectly paid, offered or promised to pay, contributed, or offered or promised to contribute any money or other valuable thing as a consideration or reward for the giving or withholding a vote at the election at which I was elected to said office, and have not made any promise to influence the giving or withholding any such vote," and no other oath, declaration or test shall be required as a qualification for any office of public trust. SECTION II. Any person holding office under the laws of this State who, except in payment of his legal salary, fees or perquisites, shall receive or consent to receive, directly or indirectly, anything of value or of personal advantage, or the promise thereof, for performing or omitting to perform any official act, or with the express or implied understanding that his official action or omission to act is to be in any degree influenced thereby, shall be deemed guilty of a felony. This section shall not affect the validity of any existing statute in relation to the offence of bribery. SECTION III. Any person who shall offer or promise a bribe to an officer, if it shall be received, shall be deemed guilty of a felony and liable to punishment, except as herein provided. No person offering a bribe shall, upon any prosecution of the officer for receiving such bribe, be privileged from testifying in relation thereto, and he shall not be liable to civil or criminal prosecution therefor, if he shall testify to the giving or offering of such bribe. Any person who shall offer or promise a bribe, if it he rejected by the officer to whom it was tendered, shall be deemed guilty of an attempt to bribe, which is hereby declared to be a felony. SECTION IV. Any person charged with receiving a bribe, or with offering or promising a bribe, shall be permitted to testify in his own behalf in any civil or criminal prosecution therefor. SECTION V. No public officer, or person elected or appointed to a public office, under the laws of this State, shall directly or indirectly ask, demand, ace pt, receive or consent to receive for his own use or benefit, or for the use or benefit of another, any free pass, free transportation, franking privilege or discrimination in passenger, telegraph or telephone rates, from any person or corporation, or make use of the same himself or in conjunction with another. A person who violates any provision of this section, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall forfeit his office at the suit of the Attorney-General. Any corporation or officer or agent thereof, who shall offer or promise to a public officer, or person elected or appointed to a public office, any such free pass, free transporation, franking privilege or discrimination shall also be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and liable to punishment except as herein provided. No person or officer or agent of a corporation giving any such free pass, free transportation, franking privilege or discrimination, hereby prohibited, shall be privileged from testifying in relation thereto, and he shall not be liable to civil or criminal prosecution therefor if he shall testify to the giving of the same. SECTION VI. Any district-attorney who shall fallaithfully to prosecute a person charged with the torneys and violation in his county of any provision of this article which may come to his knowledge, shall be removed bribery. from office by the Governor, after due notice and an opportunity of being heard in his defence. The expenses which shall be incurred by any county, in investigating and prosecuting any charge of bribery or attempting to bribe any person holding office under the laws of this State within such county, or of receiving bribes by any such person in said county, shall be a charge against the State, and their payment by the State shall be provided for by law. Constitutional ARTICLE XIV. SECTION 1. Any amendment or amendments to this Constitution may be proposed in the Senate and amendments. Assembly; and if the same shall be agreed to by a majority of the members elected to each of the two Honses, such proposed amendment or amendments shall be entered on their journals, and the yeas and nays taken thereon, and referred to the Legislature to be chosen at the next general election of Senators, and shall be published for three months previous to the time of making such choice; and if in the Legislature so next chosen, as foresaid, such proposed amendment or amendments shall be agreed to by a majority of all the members elected to each House, then it shall be the duty of the Legislature to submit such proposed amendment or amendments to the people for approval in such manner and at such times as the Legislature shall prescribe; and if the people shall approve and ratify such amendment or amendments by a majority of the electors voting thereon, such amendment or amendments shall become a part of the Constitution, from and after the first day of January next after such approval. SECTION II provides for future Constitutional conventions every 20 years. At the general election to be held in 1916 and every 20 years thereafter, and also at such times as the Legislature may provide, the question: "Shall there be a Convention to revise the Constitution and amend the same!" shall be decided by the electors of the State. The section further provides, in case the electors decide in favor of a Convention, the manner in which the delegates thereto shall be chosen, their compensation, how vacancies shall be filled and how the new Constitution shall be submitted to the electors of the State for ratification or rejection.] Convention and SECTION III. Any amendment proposed by a constitutional convention relating to the same subject as an legislative amendment proposed by the Legislature, coincidently submitted to the people for approval at the general election held in the year 1894, or at any subsequent election, shall, if approved, be deemed to supercede the amendment so proposed by the Legislature. amendments. When in force. ARTICLE XV. SECTION 1. This Constitution shall be in force from and including January 1, 1895, except as herein otherwise provided. This Constitution was signed by Joseph Hodges Choate, president, and Charles Elliott Fitch, secretary, September 29, 1894. Declaration of Endependence. IN CONGRESS JULY 4, 1776. THE unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal sta tion to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are iustituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government beconies destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it's the right, it is thei duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries, He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our peo ple, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislature. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on ns without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once au example and it instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow-Citizens taken captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions, In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have ap DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE-Continued. pealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind. Enemies in War, lu Peace Friends, WE, THEREFORE, the REPRESENTATIVES of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN GENERAL CONGRESS, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly PUBLISH and DECLARE, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. (The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and signed by the following members:) JOHN HANCOCK. New Hampshire-Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Matthew Thornton. Connecticut-Roger Sherman, Sam'el Huntington, Wm. Williams, Oliver Wolcott. New York-Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frans. Lewis, Lewis Morris. New Jersey-Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark. Pennsylvania-Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross. Delaware-Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read, Theo. M'Kean, Maryland-Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Virginia-George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Th. Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton. North Carolina-Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn. South Carolina-Edward Rutledge, Thos. Heyward, junr., Thomas Lynch, Junr., Arthur Middleton. Georgia-Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton. The United States Census. THE Constitution requires that a census of the United States shall be taken decennially. The First Census was taken in 1790 under the supervision of the President; subsequent censuses, to and Including that of 1840, were taken under the supervision of the Secretary of State. In 1849 the supervision of the census was transferred to the newly organized Department of the Interior, and continued under the control of that department until the passage of the act of 1903 creating the Department of Commerce and Labor; by this act the Census Office was transferred to the supervision of the new department. Congress, by act approved March 6, 1902, made the Census Office a permanent bureau of the Government. The last census of the United States was taken in 1900, in accordance with the act of Congress approved March 3, 1899. This act divided the statistical inquiry into two classes: Reports of the Twelfth Census, comprising population, manufactures, agriculture, and vital statistics; and special reports, the insane and feeble-minded, deaf, dumb, and blind; crime, pauperism, and benevolence; deathsand births in registration areas, social statistics of cities, wealth, debt, and taxation; religious bodies, electric light and power, telephones and telegraphs, transportation by water, street railways, express companies, and mines and mining. To these were subsequently added annual statistics of cotton production. The series comprising the main reports of the Twelfth Census were by law ordered compiled and published by July 1, 1902, after which the special reports were to receive consideration. In accordance with this law, ten volumes of the main reports, comprising about 10,000 pages, were published within the period specified, and summaries of these reports will be found on other pages of THE WORLD ALMANAC Since July 1, 1902, the Bureau of the Censs has been engaged in securing and tabulating statistics relating to the secondary reports, several of which have been completed or are now approaching completion. By act of Congress the President was empowered to instruct the Census Oflice to compile the census of the Philippine Islands, In compliance with the President's order the tabulation was made and the reports were published in four volumes. An edition in Spanish was also issued. Numerous minor assignments of statistical work have been made to the Bureau. It is likely, indeed, to become the main producer of, or clearing-house for, Federal statistics, as predicted during the discussion that preceded the establishment of the permanent office. Since the publication of the main reports of the Twelfth Census the Bureau has published the Abstract of the Twelfth Census, the Statistical Atlas of the United States, special reports on Employés and Wages, Occupations, Mines and Quarries, Street Railways, Benevolent Institutions, Electric Light and Power Stations, the Blind and the Deaf; Mortality, 1900 to 1904; Supplementary Analysis of the Twelfth Census; the Insane and Feeble-minded in Hospitals and Institutions; Paupers in Almshouses, Manufactures, 1905; Wealth, Debt, and Taxation; Prisoners; Women at Work; Mortality, 1905; and bulletins on Statistics of Cities, Valuation of Railway Operating Property, and Child Labor. It has also taken the census of Manufactures of 1905, and has issued bulletins giving the results for the United States and for the States and Territories, and for specified industries. During 1908 the Burean will be occupied principally in completing the reports on Wages, Transportation by Water; Marriage and Divorce; Religious Bodles; Criminal Judicial Statistics; Express Companies, and the annual reports on Mortailty and Cotton Production and Consumption. The Director of the Census is appointed by the President of the United States, and receives a salary of $6,000. The present Director is S. N. D. North, of Massachusetts. The office organization consists of chief clerk, William S. Rossiter; a disbursing and appointment clerk, Thomas S. Merrill; four chief statisticians; for population, William C. Hunt; for manufactures, William M. Steuart; for agriculture, Le Grand Powers, and for vital statistics, Cressy L. Wilbur; a geographer, Charles S. Sloane; and such administrative division chiefs as are required by the demands of the office. The entire number of employés in the Bureau on July 1, 1907, was 636, This number does not include special agents employed intermittently in the Southern States for the collection of cotton statistics. Washington's Farewell Address. EXTRACTS FROM HIS ADDRESS COUNSELLING THE MAINTENANCE OF THE (To the People of the United States on His Approaching Retirement from the Presidency.) Here, perhaps, I ought to stop; but a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments, which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be afforded to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel; nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion. Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence-the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed-it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts. For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of America, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived froin local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have, in a common cause, fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes. ENCROACHMENTS BY THE GOVERNMENT. It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking, in a free country, should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding, in the exercise of the powers of one department, to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal, against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments, ancient and modern; some of them in our own country, and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be, in any particular, wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance, in permanent evil, and partial or transient benefit which the use can, at any time, yield. Observe good faith and justice toward all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period. a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices? ENTANGLEMENTS WITH FOREIGN POWERS. Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellowcitizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike for another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil, and even second, the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our com mercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon, to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. PARTING COUNSELS. In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope that they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations; but if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigues, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have been dictated. United States, September 17, 1796. GEORGE WASHINGTON. Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech. (Address at the Dedication of Gettysburg Cemetery, November 19, 1863.) FOURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Empeachments in United States History. THE Constitution of the United States, Article II., Section IV., provides that civil officers of the United States may be removed from office on impeachment and conviction of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors: that the House of Representatives has the sole power of impeachment, and the Senate the sole power to try impeachments; that the Vice-President shall preside at impeachments except when the President is tried, when the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside; and that two-thirds of the members present must vote for conviction before a person impeached shall be deemed guilty. Only eight persons have been impeached and tried before the Senate, and only two of them have been convicted. The record is as follows: William Blount, Senator from Tennessee; impeached July 7, 1797, for conspiring to wage war with Spain in favor of Great Britain, to excite the Cherokee Indians against Spain, and to create disaffection among the Indians toward the United States; trial December 17, 1798, to January 14, 1799; vote, 11 guilty, 14 not guilty; verdict, acquittal. John Pickering, Judge of the District Court of the United States for the District of New Hampshire; impeached 1803 for drunkenness and disregard of the terms of the statutes; trial March 3 to March 12, 1803; vote, 19 guilty, 7 not guilty; verdict, guilty; punishment, removal from office. Samuel Chase, Associate-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; impeached 1804 for misconduct at trials of persons charged with breach of the Sedition Law; trial Nov. 30, 1804, to March 1, 1805: vote, 9 guilty, 30 not guilty, and 15 guilty, 19 not guilty, on different counts; verdict, acquittal, James Peck, Judge of the District Court of the United States for the District of Missouri; impeached for tyrannous treatment of counsel, 1830; trial May 11 to May 30, 1830, and from December 13, 1830, to January 31, 1831; vote, 22 guilty, 21 not guilty; verdict, acquittal. West H. Humphreys, Judge of the District Court of the United States for the District of Tennessee, Impeached 1862 for supporting the secession movement and unlawfully acting as Judge of the Confederate District Court; trial May 22 to June 26, 1862; vote, 32 guilty, 4 not guilty, and 38 guilty; verdict, guilty; punishment, removal from office. Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, impeached for usurpation of the law, corrupt use of the veto power, interference at elections and high crimes and misdemeanors; trial, March 30 to May 26, 1868; vote, guilty, 35, not guilty, 19; verdict, acquittal. William W. Belknap, Secretary of War of the United States, impeached for accepting bribes; trial April 5 to August 1, 1876; vote, guilty, 35, not guilty, 25; verdict, acquittal. Charles Swayne, Judge of the District Court of the United States for the District of Florida; impeached 1905 for misconduct in office; tried February 6 to February 27, 1905; vote, 55 guilty, 37 not guilty; verdict, acquittal. |