REMARKS IN THE SENATE, ON THE QUESTION OF THE COMPETENCY OF MR. WADE,
SENATOR FROM OHIO, THEN PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE PRO TEM., TO VOTE ON
THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON, MARCH 5, 1868.
MR. PRESIDENT,--I shall not attempt to follow learned Senators in the
question whether this is a Senate or a Court. That question, to my
mind, is simply one of language, and not of substance. Our powers at
this moment are under the Constitution of the United States; nor can we
add to them a tittle by calling ourselves a Court or calling ourselves
a Senate. There they are in the Constitution. Search its text and you
will find them. The Constitution has not given us a name, but it has
given us powers; and those we are now to exercise. The Senate has the
sole power to try impeachments. No matter for the name, Sir. I hope
that I do not use an illustration too familiar, when I remind you that
a rose under any other name has all those qualities which make it the
first of flowers.
I should not at this time have entered into this discussion, if I had
not listened to objections on the other side which seem to me founded,
I will not say in error, for that would be bold when we are discussing
a question of so much novelty, but I will say founded in a reading of
history which I have not been able to verify. Senator after Senator
on the other side, all distinguished by ability and learning, have
informed us that the Constitution intended to prevent a person who
might become President from presiding at the trial of the President. I
would ask learned Senators who have announced this proposition, where
they find it in the Constitution. The Constitution says:--
“When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief
Justice shall preside.”
This is all; and yet on this simple text the superstructure of Senators
has been reared.
The Constitution does not proceed to say why the Chief Justice shall
preside; not at all; nothing of the kind. Senators supply the reason,
and then undertake to apply it to the actual President of the Senate.
Where, Sir, do they find the reason? They cannot find the reason which
they now assign in any of the contemporary authorities illustrating
the Constitution; they cannot find it in the debates of the National
Convention reported by Madison, or in any of the debates in the States
at that time; nor can they find it in the “Federalist.” When does that
reason first come on the scene? Others may be more fortunate than I;
but I have not been able to find it earlier than 1825, nearly forty
years after the formation of the Constitution, in the Commentaries of
William Rawle. We all know the character of this work,--one of great
respectability, and which most of us in our early days have read and
studied. How does he speak of it? As follows:--
“The Vice-President, being the President of the Senate,
presides on the trial, except when the President of the
United States is tried. As the Vice-President succeeds to the
functions and emoluments of the President of the United States,
whenever a vacancy happens in the latter office, it would be
inconsistent with the implied purity of a judge that a person
under a probable bias of such a nature should participate in
the trial, and it would follow that he should wholly retire
from the court.”[90]
Those are the words of a commentator on the Constitution. They next
appear eight years later, in the Commentaries of Mr. Justice Story.
After citing the provision, “When the President of the United States
is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside,” the learned commentator
proceeds:--
“The reason of this clause has been already adverted to. It
was to preclude the Vice-President, who might be supposed
to have a natural desire to succeed to the office, from
being instrumental in procuring the conviction of the Chief
Magistrate.”[91]
And he cites in his note “Rawle on the Constitution, ch. 22, p.
216,”[92] being the very passage that I have just read. Here is the
first appearance of this reason, which is now made to play so important
a part, being treated even as a text of the Constitution itself. At
least I have not been able to meet it at an earlier day.
If you repair to the contemporary authorities, including the original
debates, you will find no such reason assigned,--nothing like it,--not
even any suggestion of it. On the contrary, you will find Mr. Madison,
in the Virginia Convention, making a statement which explains in the
most satisfactory manner the requirement of the Constitution.[93] No
better authority could be cited. Any reason supplied by him anterior to
the adoption of the Constitution must be of more weight than any _ex
post facto_ imagination or invention of learned commentators.
If we trust to the lights of history, the reason for the introduction
of this clause in the Constitution was because the framers of the
Constitution contemplated the possibility of the suspension of
the President from the exercise of his powers, in which event the
Vice-President could not be in your chair, Sir. If the President were
suspended, the Vice-President would be in his place. The reports
will verify what I say. If you refer to the debates of the National
Convention, under the date of Friday, September 14, 1787, you will find
the following entry, which I read now by way of introduction to what
follows at a later date, on the authority of Mr. Madison himself.
“Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Gouverneur Morris moved ‘that persons
impeached be suspended from their offices until they be tried
and acquitted.’
“MR. MADISON. The President is made too dependent already
on the Legislature by the power of one branch to try him in
consequence of an impeachment by the other. This intermediate
suspension will put him in the power of one branch only. They
can at any moment, in order to make way for the functions of
another who will be more favorable to their views, vote a
temporary removal of the existing magistrate.
“Mr. King concurred in the opposition to the amendment.”[94]
The proposition was rejected by the decisive vote of eight States
in the negative to three in the affirmative. We all see, in reading
it now, that it was rejected on good grounds. It would obviously be
improper to confer upon the other branch of Congress the power, by its
own vote, to bring about a suspension of the Chief Magistrate. But
it did not follow, because the Convention rejected the proposition
that a suspension could take place on a simple vote of the House
of Representatives, that therefore the President could not be
suspended. When the Senate was declared to have the sole power to
try impeachments, it was by necessary implication invested with the
power, incident to every court, and known historically to belong to
the English court of impeachment, from which ours was borrowed, of
suspending the party accused. All this was apparent at the time, if
possible, more clearly than now. It was so clear, that it furnishes an
all-sufficient reason for the provision that the Chief Justice should
preside on the trial of the President, without resorting to the later
reason which has been put forward in this debate.
But we are not driven to speculate on this question. While the
Constitution was under discussion in the Virginia Convention, George
Mason objected to some of the powers conferred upon the President,
especially the pardoning power. This was on June 18, 1788, and will be
found under that date in the reports of the Virginia Convention. This
earnest opponent of the Constitution said that the President might
“pardon crimes which were advised by himself,” and thus further his own
ambitious schemes. This brought forward Mr. Madison, who had sat, as
we all know, throughout the debates of the National Convention, and
had recorded its proceedings, and who, of all persons, was the most
competent to testify at that time as to the intention of the framers.
What said this eminent authority? I give you his words:--
“There is one security in this case to which gentlemen may not
have adverted. If the President be connected in any suspicious
manner with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will
shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him;
they”--
evidently referring to the Senate, or the Senate in connection with the
House--
“can remove him, if found guilty; _they can suspend
him, when suspected_, and the power will devolve on the
Vice-President.”[95]
Mark well these words,--“they can suspend him, when suspected.” If only
suspected, the President can be suspended. What next? “And his power
will devolve on the Vice-President.” In which event, of course, the
Vice-President would be occupied elsewhere than in this Chamber.
Those were the words of James Madison, spoken in debate in the Virginia
Convention. Taken in connection with the earlier passage in the
National Convention, they seem to leave little doubt with regard to the
intention of the framers of the Constitution. They were unwilling to
give to the other House alone the power of suspension; but they saw,
that, when they authorized the Senate to try impeachments, they gave to
it the power of suspension, if it should choose to exercise it; and the
suspension of the President necessarily involved the withdrawal of the
Vice-President from this Chamber, and the duty of supplying his place.
I submit, then, on the contemporary testimony, that the special reason
why the Chief Justice is called to preside, when the President is on
trial, is less what learned Senators have assigned than because the
Vice-President under certain circumstances would not be able to be
present. It was to provide for such a contingency, being nothing less
than his necessary absence in the discharge of the high duties of Chief
Magistrate, that a substitute was necessary, and he was found in the
Chief Justice. All this was reasonable. It would have been unreasonable
not to make such a provision.
But this is not all. There is an incident, immediately after the
adoption of the Constitution, which is in harmony with this authentic
history. The House of Representatives at an early day acted on the
interpretation of the Constitution given by Mr. Madison. The first
impeachment, as we all know, was of William Blount, a Senator, and in
impeaching him the House of Representatives demanded that he should “be
sequestered from his seat in the Senate.” This was in 1797. The Senate
did not comply with this demand; but the demand nevertheless exists in
the history of your Government, and it illustrates the interpretation
which was given at that time to the powers of the Senate. The language
employed, that the person impeached should be “sequestered,” is the
traditional language of the British Constitution, constantly used, and
familiar to our fathers. In employing it, the House of Representatives
gave their early testimony that the Senate could suspend from his
functions any person impeached before them; and thus the House of
Representatives unite with Madison in supplying a sufficient reason
for the provision that on the trial of the President the Chief Justice
shall preside.
In abandoning the reason which I have thus traced to contemporary
authority, you launch upon an uncertain sea. You may think the reason
assigned by the commentators to be satisfactory. It may please your
taste; but it cannot be accepted as an authentic statement. If the
original propositions were before me, I should listen to any such
suggestion with the greatest respect. I do not mean to say now, that,
as a general rule, it has not much in its favor; but I insist, that,
so far as we are informed, the reason of the commentators was an
afterthought, and that there was another reason which sufficiently
explains the rule now under consideration.
I respectfully submit, Sir, that you cannot proceed in the
interpretation of this text upon the theory adopted by the learned
Senators over the way. You must take the text as it is. You cannot go
behind it; you cannot extend it. Here it is: “When the President of
the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” That
is the whole, Sir. “The Chief Justice shall preside.” No reason is
assigned. Can you assign a reason? Can you supply a reason? Especially
can you supply one which is not sustained by the authentic contemporary
history of the Constitution, and particularly when you have authentic
contemporary history which supplies another reason? Unless I am much
mistaken, this disposes of the objection, proceeding from so many
Senators, that the Senator from Ohio cannot take the oath because he
may possibly succeed to the President now impeached at your bar.
He may vote or not, as he pleases; and there is no authority in the
Constitution, or any of its contemporary expounders, to criticize him.
* * * * *
This is all, Sir, I have to say at this time on this head. There were
other remarks made by Senators over the way to which I might reply.
There was one that fell from my learned friend, the Senator from
Maryland, [Mr. JOHNSON,] in which he alluded to myself. He represented
me as having cited many authorities from the House of Lords, tending
to show, in the case of Mr. Stockton, that this person at the time was
not entitled to vote on the question of his seat. The Senator does
not remember that debate, I think, as well as I do. The point which I
tried to present to the Senate, and which, I believe, was affirmed by
a vote of the body, was simply this: that a man cannot sit as a judge
in his own case. That was all,--at least so far as I recollect; and I
submitted that Mr. Stockton at that time was a judge undertaking to
sit in his own case.[96] Pray, Sir, what is the pertinency of this
citation? Is it applicable at all to the Senator from Ohio? Is his case
under consideration? Is he impeached at the bar of the Senate? Is he in
any way called in question? Is he to answer for himself? Not at all.
How, then, does the principle of law, that no man shall sit as a judge
in his own case, apply to him? How does the action of the Senate in the
case of Mr. Stockton apply to him? Not at all. The two cases are as
wide as the poles asunder. One has nothing to do with the other.
Something has been said of the “interest” of the Senator from Ohio
on the present occasion. “Interest”! This is the word used. We are
reminded that in a certain event the Senator may become President,
and that on this account he is under peculiar temptations, which may
swerve him from justice. The Senator from Maryland went so far as to
remind us of the large salary to which he might succeed,--not less
than twenty-five thousand dollars a year,--and thus added a pecuniary
temptation to the other disturbing forces. Is not all this very
technical? Does it not forget the character of this great proceeding?
Sir, we are a Senate, and not a Court of _Nisi Prius_. This is not
a case of assault and battery, but a trial involving the destinies
of this Republic. I doubt if the question of “interest” is properly
raised. I speak with all respect for others, but I submit that it is
inapplicable. It does not belong here. Every Senator has his vote, to
be given on his conscience. If there be any “interest” to sway him,
it must be that of justice, and the safety of the country. Against
these all else is nothing. The Senator from Ohio, whose vote is now
in question, can see nothing but those transcendent interests by the
side of which office, power, and money are of small account. Put in
one scale these interests, so dear to the heart of the patriot, and in
the other all the personal temptations which have been imagined, and I
cannot doubt, that, if the Senator from Ohio holds these scales, the
latter will kick the beam.