office from a source paramount to the national government. And the clause of the constitution, now under consideration, does not even affect to consider them officers of the United States. It says, "the president, vice-president, and all civil officers (not all other civil officers) shall be removed," &c. The language of the clause, therefore, would rather lead to the conclusion, that they were enumerated, as contradistinguished from, rather than as included in the description of, civil officers of the United States. Other clauses of the constitution would seem to favour the same result; particularly the clause, respecting appointment of officers of the United States by the executive, who is to "commission all the officers of the United States;" and the 6th section of the first article, which declares, that "no person, holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either house during his continuance in office;" and the first section of the second article, which declares, that "no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector."[1] It is far from being certain, that the convention itself ever contemplated, that senators or representatives should be subjected to impeachment;[2] and it is very far from being clear, that such a subjection would have been either politic or desirable.
§ 792. The reasoning of the Federalist on this subject, in answer to some objections to vesting the trial of impeachments in the senate, does not lead to the conclusion, that the learned author thought the senators liable to impeachment. Some parts of it would ratherPage:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/268
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CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.
[BOOK III.
