vote the same Senators who voted to sustain the plea voted "Not guilty," on the ground of lack of jurisdiction pleaded by Belknap's attorneys. So, while a majority of the Senate held that an officer could not escape impeachment by resigning, yet more than a third of the Senate refused on that ground to vote for conviction. The effect was that Belknap by resigning escaped the punishment of impeachment, though the majority of the Senate opposed this view. This precedent, however, may not be decisive in future cases. I Argument as Opposed to the view that an ex-officer or a private citizen may be impeached, it is said that the obto the Scope of ject of impeachment is to remove a corrupt or Impeachment. unworthy officer; if the term has expired or he is no longer in office that object is attained, and the reason for his impeachment no longer exists; that the conjunction in the Constitution of removal and disqualification implies that removal precedes further punishment; if the officer has resigned he cannot be removed, and therefore cannot be punished; that if a private citizen can be impeached one day after his exit from office he may be at any time in his subsequent life; that this would put a terrible weapon in the hands of a dominant political party; that the House of Representatives in the Belknap case had dropped proceedings when the accused had resigned pending investigation to determine whether the acts were impeachable. On the other hand, it is urged that if an officer, palpably guilty of fraud and malfeasance, can escape trial and punishment by resigning, this seems to make the impeachment clause nugatory and absurd; that while there is room for argument as to whether an officer can be impeached after he is out of office, it should be perfectly clear that to escape prosecution and penalty by a voluntary resignation cannot be permitted; it is especially 1 Forty-fourth Congress, first session. I desirable that such an officer should be forever after disqualified from holding any office of profit or trust. The question has been raised whether the Senate has the power to suspend the accused from office during the trial. In President Johnson's trial, in 1868, Senator Sumner maintained that the Senate could suspend Johnson from the presidential office pending the trial. According to Sumner the reason the Constitution required the Chief Justice to preside in such a case was not because the Vice-President was an interested party, but because he was supposed to be exercising the President's functions. It has been asked whether a subsequent Congress could reverse an unjust conviction. This question is purely academic; it has never been raised in practice, and it will probably never be necessary to raise it. There have been seven impeachment trials before the United States Senate. Only two of these have resulted in convictions. Historic Cases of Impeach ment in America. Blount's Case. 1. Blount's Case.—On July 7, 1797, William Blount, Senator from Tennessee, was impeached by vote of the House for high crimes and misdemeanors. On the following day he was expelled from the Senate. Articles of impeachment were not preferred at the bar of the Senate until the session of 1798. Blount was charged with creating and setting on foot, within the jurisdiction and territory of the United States, a hostile military expedition against the territories and dominions of Spain in the Floridas and Louisiana, for the purpose of wresting the same from Spain for the benefit of Great Britain with which Spain was then at war; he was charged, also, with inciting the Creek and Cherokee Indians, then inhabiting the territory of the United States, to commence hostilities against Spain in the Floridas and Louisiana, in violation of the peace and treaty existing between Spain and the United States; he was further charged with conspiring to alienate and divert the confidence of the Indians from the agent and interpreter appointed by the President. The impeachment was managed for the House by James A. Bayard and Robert G. Harper. Jared Ingersoll and A. J. Dallas, in defence of Blount, entered a plea that the Senate had no jurisdiction, since Blount was not then, nor at the time of the offences charged, a civil officer of the United States. This plea was sustained by the Senate and consequently Blount was acquitted.' 2. The Pickering Case.-On March 3, 1803, the House impeached John Pickering, a Federal District Judge for the District of New Hampshire. He was charged with making decisions contrary to law, and with drunkenness and profanity on the bench. Judge Pickering's son en Pickering's Chase's Case. tered a plea of insanity. The House managers held that the insanity was the result of habitual drunkenness. He was convicted and removed by a party vote, the Federalists voting for Pickering, but the disqualification to hold office thereafter was not imposed. 3. The Case of Chase.-Samuel Chase, one of the Justices of the Supreme Court, was impeached before the Senate in 1805. Chase was a partisan judge who had the habit, then not uncommon in England and America, of indulging in political harangues in his jury charges. He had incensed the Jeffersonian Republicans in the House by his conduct in certain trials under the Sedition Law. He was accused of arbitrary conduct, of refusing a fair trial to the accused, of announcing that his mind was already made up in cases to come before him, and of casting "highly indecent and extrajudicial" reflections upon the Government. Chase was found not guilty on most of these charges, though 1 Blount returned to Tennessee, was elected to the State Senate, was made Speaker of that body, and was about to be elected governor of the State at the time of his death.-Foster on the Constitution, vol. i., pp. 530-531. the case had the effect of leading the Democratic-Republican forces to favor a change in the tenure of Federal judges. 4. Peck's Case.-In 1830, Judge Peck, of the Federal District Court for Missouri, was tried on articles charging him with unduly punishing an attorney for contempt of court. The attorney had published a criticism of one of the Judge's decisions. Peck was acquitted. Peck's Case. Case. 5. The Humphreys Case.-At the outbreak of the Civil War, Judge West H. Humphreys, Judge of the Federal District Court for Tennessee, though actively Humphreys's engaged in the rebellion, did not resign. His position was vacated by impeachment. The charges against him were based on a secession speech made by him in Nashville, December 29, 1860, and his acceptance of the office of Confederate Judge. He was convicted by unanimous vote of the Senate, June 26, 1862. of Johnson. 6. The Impeachment of President Johnson, 1868. -The history of this case is well known. It is the only case of impeachment proceedings against a Presi- Impeachment dent. The prosecution arose on account of the violent controversies arising on Reconstruction, and was inspired largely by party motives. The charges against the President were based chiefly upon his alleged violations of the Tenure of Office Act.' Johnson escaped conviction by one vote. Seven Republican Senators voted against conviction. 7. The Belknap Case, 1876.' The Senator's term is for six years, and not The Belknap Case. at the pleasure of the legislature of his State. Originally some thought this too long a term, that the Senators would forget their obligations to their State, and it was 1 See p. 187. The facts in the Belknap case are set forth on p. 229. The Six Years' I urged that a State legislature should have the right to recall a Senator. Sometimes a legislature passes a resolution of instructions directing its Senators how to vote on certain measures, or a resolution of censure, or a resolution requesting Instructions of a Senator to resign as a misrepresentative of his State; but a Senator is in no way bound to regard such resolutions. their States, The belief in the right of a State to instruct its Senators, and that the Senators should be bound by these instructions or resign, was formerly quite com State Instruction of Senators. 2 mon. Such was the prevalent idea in the early part of the nineteenth century of the relation of a representative to his constituents. In 1808, John Quincy Adams resigned as Senator from Massachusetts because his vote on the Embargo in support of Jefferson's administration was in opposition to the wishes of his constituents. In 1828, a Senator from Kentucky spoke against the "Tariff of Abominations," but felt himself bound to vote for it "as the organ of the State of Kentucky." In 1836, John Tyler resigned his place in the Senate because the Virginia legislature had instructed him to vote in favor of the Expunging Resolution, which he could not conscientiously do.' This theory of the binding force of instructions regards the Senators as ambassadors (and the Representatives merely as delegates) who must look for instructions to the governments from which they are accredited. Early Senators often regarded themselves in this light. Senator Tazewell of Virginia declined President Jackson's offer of a place in his Cabinet, and said: "Having been elected a Senator, I would as soon think of taking a place under George IV., if I were sent as a Minister to his Court, as I would to See Elliot's Debates, vol. ii., p. 545, • Benton's Thirty Years, vol. i., p. 95, cited by Foster on the Constitution. Foster on the Constitution, vol. i., p. 496. |