and to decide with impartiality upon the charges. The persons subjected to the trial are officers of the national government; and the offences are such, as may affect the rights, duties, and relations of the party accused to the public in his political or official character, either directly or remotely. The general rules of law and evidence, applicable to common trials, are interposed, to protect the party against the exercise of wanton oppression, and arbitrary power. And the final judgment is confined to a removal from, and disqualification for, office; thus limiting the punishment to such modes of redress, as are peculiarly fit for a political tribunal to administer, and as will secure the public against political injuries. In other respects the offence is left to be disposed of by the common tribunals of justice, according to the laws of the land, upon an indictment found by a grand jury, and a trial by a jury of peers, before whom the party is to stand for his final deliverance, like his fellow citizens.
§ 811. In respect to the impeachment of the president, and vice president, it may be remarked, that they are, upon motives of high state policy, made liable to impeachment, while they yet remain in office. In England the constitutional maxim is, that the king can do no wrong. His ministers and advisers may be impeached and punished; but he is, by his prerogative, placed above all personal amenability to the laws for his acts.[1] In some of the state constitutions, no explicit provision is made for the impeachment of the chief magistrate; and in Delaware and Virginia, he was not (under their old constitutions) impeachable, until he was out of office.[2] So that no immediate remedy inPage:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/286
278
CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.
[BOOK III.
