the king’s liege people, and to demean himself answerable to the dignity of so eminent a station; yet on the contrary thereof, he doth, by his frequent and notorious excesses and debaucheries, and his profane and atheistical discourses, affront Almighty God, dishonor his Majesty, give countenance and encouragement to all manner of vice and wickedness, and bring the highest scandal on the public justice of the kingdom.”
Such was the nature of political offences, as known to the framers of the Constitution. It answered to the natural sense of the terms of the Constitution, as understood by the people in establishing it. And it is plain that the founders of the government meant to establish, what in such a government is vital to the safety and stability of the state, a jurisdiction coextensive with the influence of the officers subjected to it, and with their official duties, their functions, and their public relations.
The Federalist, in treating of this jurisdiction of the Senate, regarded it as extending over “those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men” and termed “political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to society itself.”
The people of America meant to rest their government on executive responsibility, and to apply to the President the principles which had been established as applicable only to the ministers, servants, and advisers of the king. But to show what they regarded as the range of royal duty, they had put on record a list of charges against their own king himself, commencing thus: “He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good,” — on which they justified revolution. The Declaration of Independence will aid in determining what they would regard as offences of the Executive.
No President has been impeached. But the charges exhibited against several other public officers throw light upon this subject. In 1797, articles of impeachment were found against William Blount, a Senator. The misdemeanors were not charged as being done in the execution of any office under the United States. He was not charged with misconduct in office, but with an attempt to influence a United States Indian interpreter, and to alienate the affection and confidence of the Indians. After the impeachment was known, but before it was presented to the Senate, the Senate expelled him, resolving “that he was guilty of a high misdemeanor entirely inconsistent with his public trust and duty as a Senator.”
In 1804, John Pickering, Judge of the District Court of New Hampshire, was removed for, — 1. Misbehavior as a judge; and amongst other causes, 4. For appearing drunk, and frequently, in a profane and indecent manner, invoking the name of the Supreme Being.
In 1804, Judge Chase was impeached and tried for arbitrary, oppressive, and unjust conduct, in delivering his opinion on the law beforehand, and debarring counsel from arguing the law; and for unjust, impartial, and intemperate conduct in obliging counsel to reduce their statements to writing, the use of rude and contemptuous language, and intemperate and vexatious conduct. These are cases of contemporaneous exposition. There have been other cases in the various States, and some more recent ones in Congress; but they are not necessary to illustrate the subject. Just on the eve of the war, the Senate expelled Bright for writing a letter to Jefferson Davis, introducing a man with an improvement in fire-arms as a reliable person.
As Judge Story remarked, “Political offences are of so various and complex a character, so utterly incapable of being defined or classified, that the task of positive legislation would be impracticable, if it were not almost absurd to attempt it.” Referring to the text-writers we have named, and the causes of impeachment enumerated by them, he seems to justify the extremest cases by saying that, though they now seem harsh and severe, “perhaps they were rendered necessary by existing corrup
