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CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.
[BOOK III.
Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/264
by impeachment is strictly confined to civil officers of the United States, including the president and vice-president. In this respect, it differs materially from the law and practice of Great-Britain. In that kingdom, all the king's subjects, whether peers or commoners, are impeachable in parliament; though it is asserted, that commoners cannot now be impeached for capital offences, but for misdemeanours only.[1] Such kind of misdeeds, however, as peculiarly injure the commonwealth by the abuse of high offices of trust, are the most proper, and have been the most usual grounds for this kind of prosecution in parliament.[2] There seems a peculiar propriety, in a republican government at least, in confining the impeaching power to persons holding office. In such a government all the citizens are equal, and ought to have the same security of a trial by jury for all crimes and offences laid to their charge, when not holding any official character. To subject them to impeachment would not only be extremely oppressive and expensive, but would endanger their lives and liberties, by exposing them against their wills to persecution for their conduct in exercising their political rights and privileges. Dear as the trial by jury justly is in civil cases, its value, as a protection against the resentment and violence of rulers and factions in criminal prosecutions, makes it inestimable. It is there, and there only, that a citizen, in the sympathy, the impartiality, the intelligence, and incorruptible integrity of his fellows, impaneled to try the accusation, may indulge a well-founded confidence to sustain and cheer him. If he should choose
