of habeas corpus, and the misuse of state funds for the militia. The impeachment resolution was referred to the House Judiciary Committee and promptly adopted. On December 19, the House voted 60 to 46 to impeach the governor. Chief Justice Pearson then set about creating a court of impeachment. In preparation for the impeachment trial scheduled to begin in January 1871, Holden handed over governing authority to Lieutenant Governor Tod Robinson Caldwell. On 23 January Holden's defense team issued the governor's formal response to the articles of impeachment. He defended his decision to proclaim a state of insurrection in Caswell and Alamance counties, arguing it was necessary to protect the lives of citizens, and included a 12-page supplement documenting Klan actions in the Piedmont. His responses to the other articles were shorter, though he maintained that he had acted legally. He also noted that Bergen's decision to arrest Turner was taken without his authorization. The impeachment trial lasted from January 30 to March 22. The prosecution summoned 61 witnesses, most of whom testified about alleged abuses committed by Kirk and his militiamen. The defense supplied 112 witnesses, most of whom attested to the activities of the Klan in the Piedmont with the aim of demonstrating that an insurrectionary setting existed in Caswell and Alamance. With regards to the other articles, Holden's attorneys argued that the Shoffner Act empowered him to act as he had. The proceedings were mostly orderly, though Holden stormed out after Turner insinuated that he was a "bad man" during his testimony. The North Carolina Senate convened on March 22, to vote on the conviction. Though a simple majority voted in favor of conviction on the first two articles, they lacked the necessary two-thirds majority to pass. Holden was convicted on the other six articles, and the Senate subsequently passed a resolution removing him from office and barring him from holding any other public office in North Carolina in the future. Considering his conviction near-certain, Holden did not attend the vote; he was in Washington D.C., hoping to meet with Grant to warn him of the ailing status of Reconstruction in his state. He later moved to Washington and briefly worked as a newspaper editor before Grant appointed him as a postmaster in Raleigh. During proceedings taken against men suspected of killing Outlaw in 1873, he publicly came out against their conviction, saying, "Those crimes were not