ptions and the importance of suppressing a spirit of favoritism and court intrigue.” “But others again,” he adds, “were founded in the most salutary public justice, such as impeachments for malversations and neglects in office, for official oppression, extortion, and deceit, and especially for putting good magistrates out of office and advancing bad.” He puts a case, on which he expresses no opinion, in such form that there can scarcely be any doubt of his opinion, or any possibility of two opinions concerning it. “Suppose a judge should countenance or aid insurgents in a meditated conspiracy or insurrection a meditated conspiracy or insurrection against the government. This is not a judicial act; and yet it ought certainly to be impeachable.”
Thus it appears that the political offences of the Constitution for which civil officers are removable embrace, besides the high crimes and misdemeanors of the criminal law, a range as wide as the circle of official duties and the influences of official position; they include, not only breaches of duty, but also misconduct during the tenure of office; they extend to acts for which there is no criminal responsibility whatsoever; they reach even personal conduct; they include, not merely acts of usurpation, but all such acts as tend to subvert the just influence of official position, to degrade the office, to contaminate society, to impair the government, to destroy the proper relations of civil officers to the people and to the government, and to the other branches of the government.
In fine, it may almost be said, that for a President to have done anything which he ought not to have done, or to have left undone anything which he ought to have done, is just cause for his impeachment, if the House by a majority vote feels called on to make it the ground of charges, and the Senate by a two-thirds vote determines it to be sufficient; for the safety of the state is the supreme law, and these bodies are the final judges thereof.
THE CONTENTION BETWEEN ACHILLES AND AGAMEMON.
FROM THE FIRST BOOK “ILIAD” OF HOMER. — TRANSLATED
O GODDESS ! sing the wrath of Peleus’ son,
Achilles ; sing the deadly wrath that brought
Woes numberless upon the Greeks, and swept
To Hades many a valiant soul, and gave
Their limbs a prey to dogs and birds of air, —
For so had Jove appointed,—from the time
When the two chiefs, Atrides, king of men,
And great Achilles, parted first as foes.
Which of the gods put strife between the chiefs.
That they should thus contend? Latona’s son
And Jove’s. Incensed against the king he bade
A deadly pestilence appear among
The army, and the men were perishing.
For Atreus’ son with insult had received
Chryses the priest, who to the Grecian fleet
Came to redeem his daughter, offering
Uncounted ransom. In his hand he bore
The fillets of Apollo, archer-god,
Upon the golden sceptre, and he suod
To all the Greeks, but chiefly to the sons
Of Atreus, the two leaders of the host: —
