IMPEACHMENT
The judges of the Supreme Court must fall. Our affairs approach
an important crisis. (William Plumer.)
These articles contained in themselves a virtual impeachment of
not only Mr. Chase but of all the Judges of the Supreme Court.
(John Quincy Adams.)
We shall bring forward such a specimen of judicial tyranny, as,
I trust in God, will never be again exhibited in our country.
(John Randolph.)
We appear for an ancient and infirm man whose better days have
been worn out in the service of that country which now degrades
him. (Joseph Hopkinson.)
Our property, our liberty, our lives can only be protected by
independent judges. (Luther Martin.)
"We _want your offices_, for the purpose of giving them to men who will
fill them better." In these frank words, Senator William Branch
Giles[430] of Virginia stated one of the purposes of the Republicans in
their determined attack on the National Judiciary. He was speaking to
the recently elected young Federalist Senator from Massachusetts, John
Quincy Adams.[431]
They were sitting before the blazing logs in the wide fireplace that
warmed the Senate Chamber. John Randolph, the Republican leader of the
House, and Israel Smith, a Republican Senator from Vermont, were also in
the group. The talk was of the approaching trial of Samuel Chase,
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, whom the
House had impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. Giles and Randolph
were, "with excessive earnestness," trying to convince the doubting
Vermont Senator of the wisdom and justice of the Republican method of
ousting from the National Bench those judges who did not agree with the
views of the Republican Party.
Giles scorned the idea of "an _independent_ judiciary!" The independence
claimed by the National judges was "nothing more nor less than an
attempt to establish an aristocratic despotism in themselves." The power
of the House to impeach, and of the Senate to try, any public officer
was unlimited.
"If," continued Giles, "the Judges of the Supreme Court should dare, _as
they had done_, to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional, or to send
a mandamus to the Secretary of State, _as they had done_, it was the
undoubted right of the House to impeach them, and of the Senate to
remove them for giving such opinions, however honest or sincere they may
have been in entertaining them." He held that the Senate, when trying an
impeached officer, did not act as a court. "Removal by impeachment was
nothing more than a declaration by Congress to this effect: You hold
dangerous opinions, and if you are suffered to carry them into effect
you will work the destruction of the Nation."[432]
Thus Giles made plain the Republican objective. Judges were to be
removed for any cause that a dominant political party considered to be
sufficient.[433] The National Judiciary was, in this manner, to be made
responsive to the popular will and responsible to the representatives of
the people in the House and of the States in the Senate.[434]
Giles, who was now Jefferson's personal representative in the
Senate,[435] as he had been in the House, bore down upon his mild but
reluctant fellow partisan from Vermont in a "manner dogmatical and
peremptory." Not only must the aggressive and irritating Chase be
stripped of his robes, but the same fate must fall upon "all other
Judges of the Supreme Court except the one last appointed,"[436] who,
being a Republican, was secure.[437] Adams rightly concluded that the
plan was to "have swept the supreme judicial bench clean at a
stroke."[438]
For a long time everybody had understood that the impeachment of Chase
was only the first step in the execution of the Republican plan to
replace with Republicans Marshall and the four Federalist Associate
Justices. "The judges of the Supreme Court are all Federalists," wrote
Pickering six weeks before Johnson's appointment. "They stand in the way
of the ruling power.... The Judges therefore, are, if possible, to be
removed," by impeachment.[439]
Nearly two years before, Senator William Plumer of New Hampshire had
accurately divined the Republican plan: "The judges of the Supreme Court
must fall," he informed Jeremiah Mason. "They are _denounced_ by the
Executive, as well as the House. They must be removed; they are
obnoxious unyielding men; & why should they remain to awe & embarrass
the administration? Men of more flexible nerves can be found to succeed
them. Our affairs seem to approach an important crisis."[440] The
Federalists rightly believed that Jefferson was the directing mind in
planning and effecting the subjugation of the National Judiciary. That,
said Bayard, "has been an object on which Mr. Jefferson has long been
resolved, at least ever since he has been in office."[441]
[Illustration]
John Marshall especially must be overthrown.[442] He had done all the
things of which Giles and the Republicans complained. He had "dared to
declare an act of Congress unconstitutional," had "dared" to order
Madison to show cause why he should not be compelled to do his legal
duty. Everybody was at last awake to the fact that Marshall had become
the controlling spirit of the Supreme Court and of the whole National
Judiciary.
Every one knew, too, that he was the most determined Nationalist in the
entire country, and that Jefferson and the Republican Party had no more
unyielding enemy than the Chief Justice. And he had shown by his
management of the Supreme Court and by his opinion in Marbury _vs._
Madison, how powerful that tribunal could be made. The downfall of
Samuel Chase was a matter of small importance compared with the removal
of John Marshall.
"They hate Marshall, Paterson, etc. worse than they hate Chase because
they are men of better character," asserted Judge Jeremiah Smith of New
Hampshire. "To be safe in these times good men must not only resign
their offices but they must resign their good names.... They will be
obnoxious as long as they retain _either_. If they will neither die nor
resign they give Mr J the trouble of correcting the _procedure_.... Tell
me what the judges say--are they frightened?" he anxiously inquired of
Plumer.[443] Frightened they were--and very badly frightened. Even John
Marshall, hitherto imperturbable and dauntless, was shaken.[444]
In addition to his "heretical" opinion in Marbury _vs._ Madison,
Marshall had given the Republicans, and Jefferson especially, another
cause for complaint. A year after the decision of that case, he had
again gone out of his way to announce from the Supreme Bench the fallacy
of Jefferson's Constitutional views and the soundness of the Nationalist
theory. During the February term of the Supreme Court for the year 1804,
that tribunal, in the case of the United States _vs._ Fisher,[445] was
called upon to decide whether the United States was a preferred creditor
of an insolvent, under the Bankruptcy Act of 1800, which Marshall had
helped to draw.[446] Among other objections, it was suggested by counsel
for Fisher, the insolvent, that the Bankruptcy Law was unconstitutional
and that the priority which that act gave the Nation over other
creditors of the bankrupt would prevent the States from making similar
laws for their own protection.
But, said Marshall, this is "the necessary consequence of the supremacy
of the laws of the United States on all subjects to which the
legislative power of the United States extends.... The Constitution did
not prohibit Congress" from enacting a bankruptcy law and giving the
Nation preference as a creditor. On the contrary, Congress was expressly
authorized "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to
carry into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the
National Government." To say that "no law was authorized which was not
indispensably necessary ... would produce endless difficulties....
Congress must possess the choice of means and must be empowered to use
any means which are, in fact, conducive to the exercise of a power
granted by the Constitution."
This was an emphatic denial of Jefferson's famous opinion on the power
of Congress to charter a bank, and an outright assertion of the views of
Hamilton on that celebrated question.[447] The case could have been
decided without such an expression from the court, but it presented an
opportunity for a judicial statement of liberal construction which might
not soon come again,[448] and Marshall availed himself of it.
For two years no part of the Republican plans against the Judiciary had
miscarried. Close upon the very day when John Breckenridge in the Senate
had moved to repeal the National Judiciary Act of 1801, a petition
signed by the enraged Republicans of Alleghany County, Pennsylvania, had
been sent to the Legislature of that State, demanding the impeachment of
Alexander Addison; and almost simultaneously with the passage of the
Judiciary Repeal Act of Congress, the Pennsylvania House of
Representatives transmitted to the State Senate articles charging the
able but arrogant Federalist judge with high crimes and misdemeanors.
Addison's trial speedily followed; and while the evidence against him,
viewed through the perspective of history, seems trivial, the Republican
Pennsylvania Senate pronounced judgment against him and deposed him from
the bench. With notable ability, Addison conducted his own defense. He
made a powerful speech which is a classic of conservative
philosophy.[449] But his argument was unavailing. The Republican theory,
that a judge might be deposed from office for any conduct or opinion of
which the Legislature disapproved, was ruthlessly carried out.[450]
Almost as soon as Congress convened after the overthrow of the obnoxious
Pennsylvania Federalist judge, the Republicans in the National House,
upon representations from Jefferson, took steps to impeach John
Pickering, Judge of the United States Court for the District of New
Hampshire.[451] This judge had been hopelessly insane for at least
three years and, as one result of his mental and nervous malady, had
become an incurable drunkard.[452] In this condition he had refused to
hear witnesses for the Government in the case of the ship Eliza, seized
for violation of the revenue laws. He peremptorily ordered the vessel
returned to its captain, and finally declined to allow an appeal from
his decree. All this had been done with ravings, cursings, and crazed
incoherences.[453]
That he was wholly incapacitated for office and unable to perform any
act requiring intelligence was conceded by all. But the Constitution
provided no method of removing an officer who had become insane.[454]
This defect, however, gave the Republicans an ideal opportunity to put
into practice their theory that impeachment was unrestricted and might
be applied to any officer whom, for any reason, two thirds of the Senate
deemed undesirable. "If the facts of his denying an appeal & of his
intoxication, as stated in the impeachment, are proven, that will be
sufficient cause for removal without further enquiry," asserted
Jefferson when assured that Pickering was insane, and when asked
"whether insanity was good cause for impeachment & removal from
office."[455]
The demented judge did not, of course, appear at his trial. Instead, a
petition by his son was presented, alleging the madness of his father,
and praying that evidence to that effect be received by the Senate.[456]
This plea was stoutly resisted, and for two days the question was
debated. "The most persevering and determined opposition is made against
having evidence and counsel to prove the man insane," records John
Quincy Adams, "only from the fear, that if insanity should be proved, he
cannot be convicted of _high crimes and misdemeanors_ by acts of
decisive madness."[457] Finally the determined Republicans proceeded to
the trial of the insane judge for high crimes and misdemeanors, evidence
of his dethroned reason to be received "in mitigation."[458] In immense
disgust the House managers withdrew, because "the Senate had determined
_to hear evidence_" that the accused person was insane. Before they
returned, they publicly denounced the Senators for their leniency; and
thus Republican discipline was restored.[459]
Jefferson was impatient. "It will take two years to try this
impeachment," he complained to Senator Plumer. "The Constitution ought
to be altered," he continued, "so that the President should be
authorized to remove a Judge from office, on the address of the two
Houses."[460] But the exasperated Republicans hastened the proceedings;
and the trial did not consume two weeks all told.
If an insane man should be condemned, "it will not hereafter be
necessary," declared Senator Samuel Smith of Maryland, "that a man
should be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors," the commission of
which was the only Constitutional ground for impeachment. Senator
Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey denounced the whole proceeding as "a mere
mockery of a trial."[461] Senator John Quincy Adams, in the flurry of
debate, asserted that he should "speak until [his] mouth was stopped by
force."[462] Senator Nicholas of Virginia shouted "Order! order! order!"
when Samuel White of Delaware was speaking. So furious became the
altercation that a duel seemed possible.[463] No delay was permitted
and, on March 12, 1804, the demented Pickering was, by a strictly
partisan vote of 19 to 7,[464] adjudged guilty of high crimes and
misdemeanors.
An incident happened which was prophetic of a decline in the marvelous
party discipline that had kept the Republicans in Senate and House in
solid support of the plans of the leaders. Three Republican Senators
left the Chamber in order to avoid the balloting.[465] They would not
adjudge an insane man to be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, but
they were not yet independent enough to vote against their party.[466]
This, however, did not alarm the Republican managers. They instantly
struck the next blow upon which they had determined more than two years
before. Within an hour after John Pickering was convicted the House
voted to impeach Samuel Chase.
Marshall's irascible associate on the Supreme Bench had given the
Republicans a new and serious cause for hostilities against him. In less
than two months after Marshall had delivered the unanimous opinion of
the Supreme Court in Marbury _vs._ Madison, Justice Chase, in charging
the grand jury at Baltimore, denounced Republican principles and
mercilessly assailed Republican acts and purposes.
This judicial critic of democracy told the grand jury that "the
bulk of mankind are governed by their passions, and not by reason....
The late alteration of the federal judiciary ... and the recent
change in our state constitution, by the establishing of universal
suffrage, ... will ... take away all security for property and personal
liberty ... and our republican constitution will sink into a mobocracy,
the worst of all popular governments."
Chase condemned "the modern doctrines by our late reformers, that all
men, in a state of society, are entitled to enjoy equal liberty and
equal rights, [which] have brought this mighty mischief upon us";--a
mischief which he feared "will rapidly progress, until peace and order,
freedom and property, shall be destroyed.... Will justice be impartially
administered by judges dependent on the legislature for their ...
suport? Will liberty or property be protected or secured, by laws made
by representatives chosen by electors, who have no property in, or a
common interest with, or attachment to, the community?"[467]
Burning with anger, a young Republican member of the Maryland
Legislature, John Montgomery, who had listened to this judicial tirade,
forthwith savagely denounced Chase in the _Baltimore American_.[468] He
demanded that the Justice be impeached and removed from the bench.[469]
Montgomery hastened to send to the President[470] a copy of the paper.
Jefferson promptly wrote Nicholson: "Ought this seditious and official
attack on the principles of our Constitution, and on the proceedings of
a State, go unpunished? And, to whom so pointedly as yourself will the
public look for the necessary measures?"
But Jefferson was not willing to appear openly. With that uncanny power
of divining political currents to which coarser or simpler minds were
oblivious, he was conscious of the uneasiness of Northern Republicans
over ruthless impeachment and decided not to become personally
responsible. "For myself," he cautioned Nicholson, "it is better that I
should not interfere."[471]
Upon the advice of Nathaniel Macon,[472] Republican Speaker of the
House, Nicholson concluded that it would be more prudent for another to
take the lead. It was well understood that he was to have Chase's place
on the Supreme Bench,[473] and this fact would put him at a disadvantage
if he became the central figure in the fight against the aged Justice.
The procurement of the impeachment was, therefore, placed in the eager
hands of John Randolph, that "unusual Phenomenon," as John Adams called
him,[474] whose lust for conspicuous leadership was insatiable.
The Republican managers had carefully moulded public opinion into the
belief that Chase was guilty of some monstrous crime. Months before
articles of impeachment were presented to the House, _ex parte_
statements against him were collected, published in pamphlet form, and
scattered throughout the country. To assure wider publicity all this
"evidence" was printed in the Republican organ at Washington. The
accused Justice had, therefore, been tried and convicted by the people
before the charges against him were even offered in the House.[475]
This preparation of the popular mind accomplished, Chase was finally
impeached. Eight articles setting forth the Republican accusations were
laid before the Senate. Chase was accused of everything of which
anybody had complained since his appointment to the Supreme Bench. His
conduct at the trials of Fries and Callender was set forth with tedious
particularity: in Delaware he had stooped "to the level of an informer";
his charge to the grand jury at Baltimore was an "intemperate and
inflamatory political harangue"; he had prostituted his "high judicial
character ... to the low purpose of an electioneering partizan"; his
purpose was "to excite ... odium ... against the government."[476]
This curious scramble of fault-finding, which was to turn out so fatally
for the prosecution, was the work of Randolph. When the conglomerate
indictment was drawn, no one, except perhaps Jefferson, had the faintest
idea that the Republican plan would miscarry; Randolph's multifarious
charges pleased those in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland
who had first made them; they were so drawn as to lay a foundation for
the assault which was to follow immediately. "These articles," wrote
John Quincy Adams, "contained in themselves a virtual impeachment not
only of Mr. Chase, but of all the Judges of the Supreme Court from the
first establishment of the national judiciary."[477]
In an extended and carefully prepared speech, Senator Giles, who had
drawn the rules governing the conduct of the trial in the Senate,
announced the Republican view of impeachment which, he said, "is nothing
more than an enquiry, by the two Houses of Congress, whether the office
of any public man might not be better filled by another." Adams was
convinced that "this is undoubtedly the source and object of Mr. Chase's
impeachment, and on the same principle any officer may easily be removed
at any time."[478]
From the time the House took action against Chase, the Federalists were
in despair. "I think the Judge will be removed from Office," was Senator
Plumer's opinion.[479] "The event of the impeachment is already
determined," wrote Bayard before the trial began.[480] Pickering was
certain that Chase would be condemned--so would any man that the House
might impeach; such "measures ... are made questions of _party_, and
therefore at all events to be carried into effect according to the
wishes of the prime mover [Jefferson]."[481]
As the day of the arraignment of the impeached Justice approached, his
friends were not comforted by their estimate of the public temper. "Our
public ... will be as tame as Mr. Randolph can desire," lamented Ames.
"You may broil Judge Chase and eat him, or eat him raw; it shall stir up
less anger or pity, than the Six Nations would show, if Cornplanter or
Red Jacket were refused a belt of wampum."[482]
When finally Chase appeared before the bar of the Senate, he begged that
the trial should be postponed until next session, in order that he might
have time to prepare his defense. His appeal fell on remorseless ears;
the Republicans gave him only a month. But this scant four weeks proved
fatal to their purpose. Jefferson's wise adjustment of the greatest
financial scandal in American history[483] came before the House during
this interval; and fearless, honest, but impolitic John Randolph
attacked the Administration's compromise of the Yazoo fraud with a
ferocity all but insane in its violence. Literally screaming with rage,
he assailed Jefferson's Postmaster-General who was lobbying on the floor
of the House for the passage of the President's Yazoo plan, and
delivered continuous philippics against that polluted transaction out of
which later came the third of John Marshall's most notable
opinions.[484]
In this frame of mind, nervously exhausted, physically overwrought and
troubled, the most brilliant and effective Congressional partisan
leader of our early history came to the trial. Moreover, Randolph had
broken with the Administration and challenged Jefferson's hitherto
undisputed partisan autocracy. This was the first public manifestation
of that schism in the Republican Party which was never entirely healed.
Such was the situation on the 4th of February, 1805, when the Senate
convened to hear and determine the case of Samuel Chase, impeached by
the House for high crimes and misdemeanors, to settle by the judgment it
should render the fate of John Marshall as Chief Justice of the United
States, and to fix forever the place of the National Judiciary in the
scheme of American government.
"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!--All persons are commanded to keep silence on pain of
imprisonment, while the grand inquest of the nation is exhibiting to the
Senate of the United States, sitting as a Court of Impeachments,
articles of impeachment against Samuel Chase, Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States."[485]
So cried the Sergeant-at-Arms of the National Senate when, in the Chase
trial, John Marshall, the Supreme Court, and the whole National
Judiciary were called to judgment by Thomas Jefferson, on the bleak
winter day in dismal, scattered, and quarreling Washington. An audience
crowded the Senate Chamber almost to the point of suffocation. There
were present not only the members of Senate and House, the officers of
the Executive departments, and the men and women of the Capital's
limited society, but also scores of eminent persons from distant parts
of the country.[486]
Among the spectators were John Marshall and the Associate Justices of
the Supreme Court, thoroughly conscious that they, and the institution
of which they were the highest representatives, were on trial almost as
much as their imprudent, rough, and outspoken fellow member of the
Bench. It is not improbable that they were helping to direct the defense
of Chase,[487] in which, as officials, they were personally interested,
and in which, too, all their convictions as citizens and jurists were
involved.
[Illustration: LETTER TO SAMUEL CHASE (_Facsimile_)]
Marshall, aroused, angered, and frightened by the articles of the
impeachment, had written his brother a year before the Chase trial that
they are "sufficient to alarm the friends of a pure, and, of course, an
independent Judiciary, if, among those who rule our land there be any of
that description."[488] At the beginning of the proceedings Chase had
asked Marshall, who was then in Richmond, to write an account of what
occurred at the trial of Callender, and Marshall promptly responded: "I
instantly applied to my brother[489] & to Mr. Wickham[490] to state
their recollection of the circumstances under which Colo. Taylors
testimony was rejected.[491] They both declared that they remembred them
very imperfectly but that they woud endeavor to recollect what passed
& commit it to writing. I shall bring it with me to Washington in
february." Marshall also promised to bring other documents.
"Admitting it to be true," continues Marshall, "that on legal principles
Colo. Taylors testimony was admissible, it certainly constitutes a very
extraordinary ground for an impeachment. According to the antient
doctrine a jury finding a verdict against the law of the case was liable
to an attaint; & the amount of the present doctrine seems to be that a
Judge giving a legal opinion contrary to the opinion of the legislature
is liable to impeachment.
"As, for convenience & humanity the old doctrine of attaint has yielded
to the silent, moderate but not less operative influence of new trials,
I think the modern doctrine of impeachment should yield to an appellate
jurisdiction in the legislature. A reversal of those legal opinions
deemed unsound by the legislature would certainly better comport with
the mildness of our character than [would] a removal of the Judge who
has rendered them unknowing of his fault.
"The other charges except the 1st & 4th which I suppose to be altogether
unfounded, seem still less to furnish cause for impeachment. But the
little finger of [blotted out--probably "democracy"] is heavier than the
loins of ----.[492]
"Farewell--With much respect and esteem....
"J. MARSHALL."[493]
Marshall thus suggested the most radical method for correcting judicial
decisions ever advanced, before or since, by any man of the first class.
Appeals from the Supreme Court to Congress! Senators and Representatives
to be the final judges of any judicial decision with which a majority of
the House was dissatisfied! Had we not the evidence of Marshall's
signature to a letter written in his well-known hand, it could not be
credited that he ever entertained such sentiments. They were in direct
contradiction to his reasoning in Marbury _vs._ Madison, utterly
destructive of the Federalist philosophy of judicial control of
legislation.
The explanation is that Marshall was seriously alarmed. By his own pen
he reveals to us his state of mind before and on that dismal February
day when he beheld Samuel Chase arraigned at the bar of the Senate of
the United States. During the trial Marshall's bearing as a witness[494]
again exhibited his trepidation. And, as we have seen, he had good cause
for sharp anxiety.[495]
The avowed Republican purpose to remove him and his Federalist
associates from the Supreme Bench, the settled and well-known intention
of Jefferson to appoint Spencer Roane as Chief Justice when Marshall was
ousted, and the certainty that this would be fatal to the execution of
those fundamental principles of government to which Marshall was so
passionately devoted--these important considerations fully warranted the
apprehension which the Chief Justice felt and now displayed.
Had he been indifferent to the peril that confronted him and the whole
National Judiciary, he would have exhibited a woeful lack of sense and
feeling. He was more than justified in resorting to any honorable
expedient to save the great office he held from occupancy by a resolute
and resourceful foe of those Constitutional theories, the application of
which, Marshall firmly believed, was indispensable to the sound
development of the American Nation.
The arrangements for the trial were as dramatic as the event itself was
momentous.[496] The scenes of the impeachment prosecution of Warren
Hastings were still vivid in the minds of all, and in imitation of that
spectacle, the Senate Chamber was now bedecked with impressive splendor.
It was aglow with theatrical color, and the placing of the various seats
was as if a tragic play were to be performed.
To the right and left of the President's chair were two rows of benches
with desks, the whole covered with crimson cloth. Here sat the
thirty-four Senators of the United States. Three rows of benches,
arranged in tiers, extended from the wall toward the center of the room;
these were covered with green cloth and were occupied by the members of
the House of Representatives. Upon their right an enclosure had been
constructed, and in it were the members of Jefferson's Cabinet.
Beneath the permanent gallery to which the general public was admitted,
a temporary gallery, supported by pillars, ran along the wall, and
faced the crimson-covered places of the Senators. At either end of it
were boxes. Comfortable seats had been provided in this enclosure; and
these were covered with green cloth, which also was draped over the
balustrade.
This sub-gallery and the boxes were filled with ladies dressed in the
height of fashion. A passageway was left from the President's chair to
the doorway. On either side of this aisle were two stalls covered with
blue cloth, as were also the chairs within them. They were occupied by
the managers of the House of Representatives and by the lawyers who
conducted the defense.[497]
A short, slender, elegantly formed man, with pallid face and steady
black eyes, presided over this Senatorial Court. He was carefully
dressed, and his manners and deportment were meticulously correct. Aaron
Burr, fresh from his duel with Hamilton, and under indictment in two
States, had resumed his duties as Vice-President. Nothing in the bearing
of this playwright character indicated in the smallest degree that
anything out of the ordinary had happened to him. The circumstance of
his presence, however, dismayed even the most liberal of the New England
Federalists. "We are indeed fallen on evil times," wrote Senator Plumer.
"The high office of President is filled by an _infidel_, that of
Vice-President by a _murderer_."[498]
For the first time since the Republican victory of 1800, which, but for
his skill, courage, and energy in New York, would not have been
achieved,[499] Burr now found himself in favor with the Administration
and the Republican chieftains.[500] Jefferson determined that Aaron Burr
must be captured--at least conciliated. He could not be displaced as the
presiding officer at the Chase impeachment trial; his rulings would be
influential, perhaps decisive; the personal friendship and admiration of
several Senators for him were well known; the emergency of the
Republican Party was acute. Chase must be convicted at all hazards; and
while nobody but Jefferson then doubted that this would be the result,
no chances were to be taken, no precaution overlooked.
The President had rewarded the three principal witnesses against
Pickering with important and lucrative offices[501] after the insane
judge had been removed from the bench. Indeed he had given the vacated
judgeship to one of these witnesses. But such an example Jefferson well
knew would have no effect upon Burr; even promises would avail nothing
with the man who for nearly three years had suffered indignity and
opposition from an Administration which he, more than any one man except
Jefferson himself, had placed in power.
So it came about that Vice-President Aaron Burr, with only four weeks of
official life left him, with the whole North clamorous against him
because of his killing of Hamilton and an indictment of murder hanging
over him in New Jersey, now found himself showered with favors by those
who owed him so much and who, for nearly four years, had so grossly
insulted him.
Burr's stepson, his brother-in-law, his most intimate friend, were
forthwith appointed to the three most valuable and commanding offices in
the new government of the Louisiana Territory, at the attractive city of
New Orleans.[502] The members of the Cabinet became attentive to Burr.
The President himself exercised his personal charm upon the fallen
politician. Time after time Burr was now invited to dine with Jefferson
at the Executive Mansion.
Nor were Presidential dinners, the bestowal of patronage hitherto
offensively refused, and attentions of the Cabinet, the limit of the
efforts to win the coöperation of the man who was to preside over the
trial of Samuel Chase. Senator Giles drew a petition to the Governor of
New Jersey begging that the prosecution of Burr for murder be dropped,
and to this paper he secured the signature of nearly all the Republican
Senators.[503]
Burr accepted these advances with grave and reserved dignity; but he
understood the purpose that inspired them, did not commit himself, and
remained uninfluenced and impartial. Throughout the momentous trial the
Vice-President was a model presiding officer. "He conducted with the
dignity and impartiality of an angel, but with the rigor of a devil,"
records a Washington newspaper that was bitterly hostile to Burr
personally and politically.[504]
When Chase took his place in the box, the Sergeant-at-Arms brought him a
chair; but Burr, adhering to the English custom, which required
prisoners to stand when on trial in court, ordered it to be taken
away.[505] Upon the request of the elderly Justice, however, Burr
quickly relented and the desired seat was provided.[506]
Chase was, in appearance, the opposite of the diminutive and graceful
Vice-President. More than six feet tall, with thick, broad, burly
shoulders, he was a picture of rugged and powerful physical manhood,
marred by an accumulation of fat which his generous manner of living had
produced. Also he was afflicted with an agonizing gout, with which it
seems so many of "the fathers" were cursed. His face was broad and
massive, his complexion a brownish red.[507] "Bacon face" was a nickname
applied to him by the Maryland bar.[508] His head was large, his brow
wide, and his hair was thick and white with the snows of his sixty-four
winters.[509]
The counsel that surrounded the impeached Justice were brilliant and
learned.[510] They were Joseph Hopkinson, who six years before, upon
Marshall's return from France, had written "Hail Columbia; or, The
President's March"; Philip Barton Key, brother of the author of "The
Star-Spangled Banner";[511] Robert Goodloe Harper, one of the Federalist
leaders in Congress during the ascendancy of that party; and Charles
Lee, Attorney-General under President Adams when Marshall was Secretary
of State, and one of Marshall's most devoted friends.[512]
But in the chair next to Chase sat a man who, single-handed and alone,
was more than a match for all the managers of the House put together.
Luther Martin of Maryland--of medium height, broad-shouldered,
near-sighted, absent-minded, shabbily attired, harsh of voice, now
sixty-one years old, with gray hair beginning to grow thin and a face
crimsoned by the brandy which he continually imbibed--was the dominating
figure of this historic contest.[513]
Weary and harried as he was, Randolph opened the trial with a speech of
some skill. He contrasted the conduct of Chase in the trial of Callender
with that of Marshall in a trial in Richmond in 1804 at which Marshall
had presided. "Sir," said Randolph, "in the famous case of Logwood,[514]
whereat the Chief Justice of the United States presided, I was present,
being one of the grand jury who found a true bill against him.... The
government was as deeply interested in arresting the career of this
dangerous and atrocious criminal, who had aimed his blow against the
property of every man in society, as it could be in bringing to
punishment a weak and worthless scribbler [Callender]."
But how had Marshall acted in the conduct of that trial? "Although,"
continued Randolph, "much testimony was offered by the prisoner, which
did by no means go to his entire exculpation, although much of that
testimony was of a very questionable nature, none of it was declared
_inadmissable_." Marshall suffered it "to go to the jury, who were left
to judge of its weight and credibility"; nor had he required "any
interrogatories to the witnesses ... to be reduced to writing,"--such a
thing never had been done in Virginia before the tyrannical ruling of
Chase in the trial of Callender.
"No, Sir!" he cried. "The enlightened man who presided in Logwood's case
knew that, although the basest and vilest of criminals, he was entitled
to _justice_, equally with the most honorable member of society."
Marshall "did not avail himself of the previous and great discoveries in
criminal law, of this respondent [Chase]"; Marshall "admitted the
prisoner's testimony to go to the jury"; Marshall "never thought it _his
right_ or _his duty_ to require questions to be reduced to writing";
Marshall "gave the accused _a fair trial_ according to law and usage,
without any innovation or departure from the established rules of
criminal jurisprudence in his country."
Marshall's gentle manner and large-minded, soft-spoken rulings as a
trial judge were thus adroitly made to serve as an argument for the
condemnation of his associate, and for his own undoing if Chase should
be convicted. Randolph denounced "the monstrous pretension that an act
to be impeachable must be indictable. Where? In the Federal Courts?
There, not even robbery and murder are indictable."
[Illustration: JOHN RANDOLPH]
A judge could not, under the National law, be indicted for conducting a
National court while drunk, and perhaps not in all State courts. "It
is indictable nowhere for him to omit to do his duty, to refuse to hold
a court. But who can doubt that both are impeachable offenses, and ought
to subject the offender to removal from office?"
The autocrat of Congress then boldly announced to the Republican
Senators that the House managers "confidently expect on his [Chase's]
conviction.... We shall bring forward ... such a specimen of judicial
tyranny, as, I trust in God, will never be again exhibited in our
country."[515]
Fifty-two witnesses were examined. It was established that, in the trial
of Fries, Chase had written the opinion of the court upon the law before
the jury was sworn, solely in order to save time; had withdrawn the
paper and destroyed it when he found Fries's counsel resented the
court's precipitate action; and, finally, had repeatedly urged them to
proceed with the defense without restriction. Chase's inquisitorial
conduct in Delaware was proved, and several witnesses testified to the
matter and manner of his charge to the Baltimore grand jury.[516]
Every incident in the trial of Callender[517] was described by numerous
witnesses.[518] George Hay, who had been the most aggressive of
Callender's counsel, was so anxious to help the managers that he made a
bad impression on the Senate by his eagerness.[519] It developed that
the whole attitude of Chase had been one of sarcastic contempt; and that
Callender's counsel were more piqued by the laughter of the spectators
which the witty sallies and humorous manner of the Justice excited, than
they were outraged by any violence on Chase's part, or even by what they
considered the illegal and oppressive nature of his rulings.
When, in defending Callender, Hay had insisted upon "a literal recital
of the parts [of _The Prospect Before Us_] charged as libellous," Chase,
looking around the court-room, said with an ironical smile: "It is
contended ... that the book ought to be copied _verbatim et literatim_,
I wonder, ... that _they_ do not contend for _punctuatim_ too."[520] The
audience laughed. Chase's interruption of Wirt[521] by calling the young
lawyer's "syllogistical" conclusion a "_non sequitur_, sir," was
accompanied by an inimitable "bow" that greatly amused the listeners.
In short, the interruptions of the sardonic old Justice were, as John
Taylor of Caroline testified, in "a very high degree imperative,
satirical, and witty ... [and] extremely well calculated to abash and
disconcert counsel."[522]
Among the witnesses was Marshall's brother William, whom President Adams
had appointed clerk of the United States Court at Richmond.[523] His
testimony was important on one point. One John Heath, a Richmond
attorney and a perfect stranger to Chase, had sworn that Chase, in his
presence, had asked the United States Marshal, David M. Randolph, "if he
had any of those creatures or people called democrats on the panel of
the jury to try Callender"; that when the Marshal replied that he had
"made no discrimination," the Judge told him "to look over the panel
and if there were any of that description, strike them off."
William Marshall, on the contrary, made oath that Chase told him that he
hoped even Giles would serve on the jury--"Nay, he wished that Callender
might be tried by a jury of his own politics." David M. Randolph then
testified that he had never seen Heath in the Judge's chambers, that
Chase "never at any time or place" said anything to him about striking
any names from the jury panel, and that he never received "any
instructions, verbal, or by letter, from Judge Chase in relation to the
grand jury."[524]
John Marshall himself was then called to the stand and sworn. Friendly
eye-witnesses record that the Chief Justice appeared to be frightened.
He testified that Colonel Harvie, with whom he "was intimately
acquainted,"[525] had asked him to get the Marshal to excuse Harvie from
serving on the jury because "his mind was completely made up ... and
whatever the evidence might be, he should find the traverser not
guilty." When Marshall told this to the court official, the latter said
that Harvie must apply to the Judge, because he "was watched," and "to
prevent any charge of improper conduct" he would not discharge any of
the jury whom he had summoned. Marshall then induced Chase to release
Harvie "upon the ground of his being sheriff of Henrico County and that
his attendance was necessary" at the county court then in session.
Marshall said that he was in court during a part of the Callender trial
and that "there were several circumstances that took place ... on the
part both of the bar and the bench which do not always occur at
trials.... The counsel appeared ... to wish to argue to the jury that
the Sedition Law was unconstitutional. Mr. Chase said that that was not
a proper question to go to the jury"; and that whenever Callender's
attorneys began to argue to the contrary the court stopped them.
The Chief Justice further testified that George Hay had addressed the
court to the effect that in this ruling Chase was "not correct in point
of law," and again the Judge "stopped him"; that "Mr. Hay still went on
and made some political observations; Judge Chase stopped him again and
the collision ended by Mr. Hay sitting down and folding up his papers as
if he meant to retire."
Marshall did not recollect "precisely," although it appeared to him that
"whenever Judge Chase thought the counsel incorrect in their points, he
immediately told them so and stopped them short." This "began early in
the proceedings and increased. On the part of the judge it seemed to be
a disgust with regard to the mode adopted by the traverser's counsel,
at least ... as to the part which Mr. Hay took in the trial."
Randolph asked Marshall whether it was the practice for courts to hear
counsel argue against the correctness of rulings; and Marshall replied
that "if counsel have not been already heard, it is usual to hear them
in order that they may change or confirm the opinion of the court, when
there is any doubt entertained." But there was "no positive rule on the
subject and the course pursued by the court will depend upon
circumstances: Where the judge believes that the point is perfectly
clear and settled he will scarcely permit the question to be agitated.
However, it is considered as decorous on the part of the judge to listen
while the counsel abstain from urging unimportant arguments."
Marshall was questioned closely as to points of practice. His answers
were not favorable to his Associate Justice. Did it appear to him that
"the conduct of Judge Chase was mild and conciliatory" during the trial
of Callender? Marshall replied that he ought to be asked what Chase's
conduct was and not what he thought of it. Senator William Cocke of
Tennessee said the question was improper, and Randolph offered to
withdraw it. "No!" exclaimed Chase's counsel, "we are willing to abide
in this trial by the opinion of the Chief Justice." Marshall declared
that, except in the Callender trial, he never heard a court refuse to
admit the testimony of a witness because it went only to a part and not
to the whole of a charge.
Burr asked Marshall: "Do you recollect whether the conduct of the judge
at this trial was tyrannical, overbearing and oppressive?" "I will state
the facts," cautiously answered the Chief Justice. "Callender's counsel
persisted in arguing the question of the constitutionality of the
Sedition Law, in which they were constantly repressed by Judge Chase.
Judge Chase checked Mr. Hay whenever he came to that point, and after
having resisted repeated checks, Mr. Hay appeared to be determined to
abandon the cause, when he was desired by the judge to proceed with his
argument and informed that he should not be interrupted thereafter.
"If," continued Marshall, "this is not considered tyrannical, oppressive
and overbearing, I know nothing else that was so." It was usual for
courts to hear counsel upon the validity of rulings "not solemnly
pronounced," and "by no means usual in Virginia to try a man for an
offense at the same term at which he is presented"; although, said
Marshall, "my practice, while I was at the bar was very limited in
criminal cases."
"Did you ever hear Judge Chase apply any unusual epithets--such as
'_young men_' or '_young gentlemen_'--to counsel?" inquired Randolph. "I
have heard it so frequently spoken of since the trial that I cannot
possibly tell whether my recollection of the term is derived from
expressions used in court, or from the frequent mention since made of
them." But, remarked Marshall, having thus adroitly placed the burden on
the irresponsible shoulders of gossip, "I am rather inclined to think
that I did hear them from the judge." Randolph then drew from Marshall
the startling and important fact that William Wirt was "about thirty
years of age and a widower."[526]
Senator Plumer, with evident reluctance, sets down in his diary a
description from which it would appear that Marshall's manner affected
the Senate most unfavorably. "John Marshall is the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States. I was much better pleased with the
manner in which his brother testified than with him.
"The Chief Justice really discovered too much caution--too much
fear--too much cunning--He ought to have been more bold--frank &
explicit than he was.
"There was in his manner an evident disposition to accommodate the
Managers. That dignified frankness which his high office required did
not appear. A cunning man ought never to discover the arts of the
_trimmer_ in his testimony."[527]
Plainly Marshall was still fearful of the outcome of the Republican
impeachment plans, not only as to Chase, but as to the entire Federalist
membership of the Supreme Court. His understanding of the Republican
purpose, his letter to Chase, and his manner on the stand at the trial
leave no doubt as to his state of mind. A Republican Supreme Court, with
Spencer Roane as Chief Justice, loomed forbiddingly before him.
Chase was suffering such agony from the gout that, when the testimony
was all in, he asked to be released from further attendance.[528] Six
days before the evidence was closed, the election returns were read and
counted, and Aaron Burr "declared Thomas Jefferson and George Clinton to
be duly elected to the respective offices of President and
Vice-President of the United States."[529] For the first time in our
history this was done publicly; on former occasions the galleries were
cleared and the doors closed.[530]
Throughout the trial Randolph and Giles were in frequent
conference--judge and prosecutor working together for the success of the
party plan.[531] On February 20 the arguments began. Peter Early of
Georgia spoke first. His remarks were "chiefly declamatory."[532] He
said that the conduct of Chase exhibited that species of oppression
which puts accused citizens "at the mercy of _arbitrary and overbearing
judges_." For an hour and a half he reviewed the charges,[533] but he
spoke so badly that "most of the members of the other House left the
chamber & a large portion of the spectators the gallery."[534]
George Washington Campbell of Tennessee argued "long and
tedious[ly]"[535] for the Jeffersonian idea of impeachment which he held
to be "a kind of an inquest into the conduct of an officer ... and the
effects that his conduct ... may have on society." He analyzed the
official deeds of Chase by which "the whole community seemed shocked....
Future generations are interested in the event."[536] He spoke for parts
of two days, having to suspend midway in the argument because of
exhaustion.[537] Like Early, Campbell emptied the galleries and drove
the members of the House, in disgust, from the floor.[538]
Joseph Hopkinson then opened for the defense. Although but thirty-four
years old, his argument was not surpassed,[539] even by that of
Martin--in fact, it was far more orderly and logical than that of
Maryland's great attorney-general. "We appear," began Hopkinson, "for an
ancient and infirm man, whose better days have been worn out in the
service of that country which now degrades him." The case was "of
infinite importance," truly declared the youthful attorney. "The
faithful, the scrutinizing historian, ... without fear or favor" will
render the final judgment. The House managers were following the British
precedent in the impeachment of Warren Hastings; but that celebrated
prosecution had not been instituted, as had that of Chase, on "a petty
catalogue of frivolous occurrences, more calculated to excite ridicule
than apprehension, but for the alleged murder of princes and plunder of
empires"; yet Hastings had been acquitted.
In England only two judges had been impeached in half a century, while
in the United States "seven judges have been prosecuted criminally in
about two years." Could a National judge be impeached merely for "error,
mistake, or indiscretion"? Absurd! Such action could be taken only for
"an indictable offense." Thus Hopkinson stated the master question of
the case. In a clear, closely woven argument, the youthful advocate
maintained his ground.
The power of impeachment by the House was not left entirely to the
"opinion, whim, or caprice" of its members, but was limited by other
provisions of the fundamental law. Chase was not charged with treason,
bribery, or corruption. Had any other "high crimes and misdemeanors"
been proved or even stated against him? He could not be impeached for
ordinary offenses, but only for "high crimes and high misdemeanors."
Those were legal and technical terms, "well understood and defined in
law.... A misdemeanor or a crime ... is an act committed or omitted, in
violation of a _public_ law either forbidding or commanding it. By this
test, let the respondent ... stand justified or condemned."
The very nature of the Senatorial Court indicated "the grade of offenses
intended for its jurisdiction.... Was such a court created ... to scan
and punish paltry errors and indiscretions, too insignificant to have a
name in the penal code, too paltry for the notice of a court of quarter
sessions? This is indeed employing an elephant to remove an atom too
minute for the grasp of an insect."
Had Chase transgressed any State or National statute? Had he violated
the common law? Nobody claimed that he had. Could any judge be firm,
unbiased, and independent if he might at any time be impeached "on the
mere suggestions of caprice ... condemned by the mere voice of
prejudice"? No! "If his nerves are of iron, they must tremble in so
perilous a situation."
Hopkinson dwelt upon the true function of the Judiciary under free
institutions. "All governments require, in order to give them firmness,
stability, and character, some permanent principle, some settled
establishment. The want of this is the great deficiency in republican
institutions." In the American Government an independent, permanent
Judiciary supplied this vital need. Without it "nothing can be relied
on; no faith can be given either at home or abroad." It was also "a
security from oppression."
All history proved that republics could be as tyrannical as despotisms;
not systematically, it was true, but as the result of "sudden gust of
passion or prejudice.... If we have read of the death of a Seneca under
the ferocity of a Nero, we have read too of the murder of a Socrates
under the delusion of a Republic. An independent and firm Judiciary,
protected and protecting by the laws, would have snatched the one from
the fury of a despot, and preserved the other from the madness of a
people."[540] So spoke Joseph Hopkinson for three hours,[541] made
brief and brilliant by his eloquence, logic, and learning.
Philip Barton Key of Washington, younger even than Hopkinson, next
addressed the Senatorial Court. He had been ill the day before[542] and
was still indisposed, but made an able speech. He analyzed, with
painstaking minuteness, the complaints against his client, and cleverly
turned to Chase's advantage the conduct of Marshall in the Logwood
case.[543] Charles Lee then spoke for the defense; but what he said was
so technical, applying merely to Virginia legal practice of the time,
that it is of no historical moment.[544]
When, on the next day, February 23, Luther Martin rose, the Senate
Chamber could not contain even a small part of the throng that sought
the Capitol to hear the celebrated lawyer. If he "_only_ appeared in
defense of a friend," said Martin, he would not be so gravely concerned;
but the case was plainly of highest possible importance, not only to all
Americans then living, but to "posterity." It would "establish a most
important precedent as to future cases of impeachment." An error now
would be fatal.
For what did the Constitution authorize the House to impeach and the
Senate to try an officer of the National Government? asked Martin. Only
for "an indictable offense." Treason and bribery, specifically named in
the Constitution as impeachable offenses, were also indictable. It was
the same with "other high crimes and misdemeanors," the only additional
acts for which impeachment was provided. To be sure, a judge might do
deeds for which he could be indicted that would not justify his
impeachment, as, for instance, physical assault "provoked by insolence."
But let the House managers name one act for which a judge could be
impeached that did not also subject him to indictment.
Congress could pass a law making an act criminal which had not been so
before; but such a law applied only to deeds committed after, and not to
those done before, its passage. Yet if an officer might, years after the
event, be impeached, convicted, and punished for conduct perfectly legal
at the time, "could the officers of Government ever know how to
proceed?" Establish such a principle and "you leave your judges, and all
your other officers, at the mercy of the prevailing party."
Had Chase "used _unusual_, rude and _contemptuous_ expressions towards
the prisoner's counsel" in the Callender case, as the articles of
impeachment charged? Even so, this was "rather a violation of the
principles of politeness, than the principles of law; rather the want of
decorum, than the commission of a _high crime and misdemeanor_." Was a
judge to be impeached and removed from office because his deportment was
not elegant?
The truth was that Callender's counsel had not acted in his interest and
had cared nothing about him; they had wished only "to hold up the
prosecution as oppressive" in order to "excite public indignation
against the court and the Government." Had not Hay just testified that
he entertained "no hopes of convincing the court, and scarcely the
faintest expectation of inducing the jury to believe that the sedition
law was unconstitutional"; but that he had wished to make an "impression
upon the public mind.... What barefaced, what unequalled hypocrisy doth
he admit that he practiced on that occasion! What egregious trifling
with the court!" exclaimed Martin.
When Chase had observed that Wirt's syllogism was a "_non sequitur_,"
the Judge, it seems, had "bowed." Monstrous! But "as _bows_, sir,
according to the manner they are _made_, may ... convey very different
meanings," why had not the witness who told of it, "given us a _fac
simile_ of it?" The Senate then could have judged of "the propriety" of
the bow. "But it seems this _bow_, together with the '_non sequitur_'
entirely discomfitted poor Mr. Wirt, and down he sat 'and never word
spake more!'" By all means let Chase be convicted and removed from the
bench--it would never do to permit National judges to make bows in any
such manner!
But alas for Chase! He had committed another grave offense--he had
called William Wirt "_young_ gentleman" in spite of the fact that Wirt
was actually thirty years old and a widower. Perhaps Chase did not know
"of these circumstances"; still, "if he had, considering that Mr. Wirt
was a widower, he certainly erred on the right side ... in calling _him_
a _young_ gentleman."[545]
When the laughter of the Senate had subsided, Martin, dropping his
sarcasm, once more emphasized the vital necessity of the independence of
the Judiciary. "We boast" that ours is a "government of laws. But how
can it be such, unless the laws, while they exist, are sacredly and
impartially, without regard to popularity, carried into execution?" Only
independent judges can do this. "Our property, our liberty, our lives,
can only be protected and secured by such judges. With this honorable
Court it remains, whether we shall have such judges!"[546]
Martin spoke until five o'clock without food or any sustenance, "except
two glasses of wine and water"; he said he had not even breakfasted that
morning, and asked permission to finish his argument next day.
When he resumed, he dwelt on the liberty of the press which Chase's
application of the Sedition Law to Callender's libel was said to
have violated. "My honorable client with many other respectable
characters ... considered it [that law] as a wholesome and necessary
restraint" upon the licentiousness of the press.[547] Martin then quoted
with telling effect from Franklin's denunciation of newspapers.[548]
"Franklin, himself a printer," had been "as great an advocate for the
liberty of the press, as any reasonable man ought to be"; yet he had
"declared that unless the slander and calumny of the press is restrained
by some other law, it will be restrained by club law." Was not that
true?
If men cannot be protected by the courts against "base calumniators,
they will become their own avengers. And to the bludgeon, the sword or
the pistol, they will resort for that purpose." Yet Chase stood
impeached for having, as a judge, enforced the law against the author of
"one of the most flagitious libels ever published in America."[549]
Throughout his address Martin mingled humor with logic, eloquence with
learning.[550] Granted, he said, that Chase had used the word "damned"
in his desultory conversation with Triplett during their journey in a
stage. "However it may sound elsewhere in the United States, I cannot
apprehend it will be considered _very_ offensive, _even_ from the mouth
of a judge on this side of the Susquehanna;--to the southward of that
river it is in familiar use ... supplying frequently the place of the
word 'very' ... connected with subjects the most pleasing; thus we say
indiscriminately a very good or a damned good bottle of wine, a damned
good dinner, or a damned clever fellow."[551]
Martin's great speech deeply impressed the Senate with the ideas that
Chase was a wronged man, that the integrity of the whole National
Judicial establishment was in peril, and that impeachment was being used
as a partisan method of placing the National Bench under the rod of a
political party. And all this was true.
Robert Goodloe Harper closed for the defense. He was intolerably
verbose, but made a good argument, well supported by precedents. In
citing the example which Randolph had given as a good cause for
impeachment--the refusal of a judge to hold court--Harper came near,
however, making a fatal admission. This, said Harper, would justify
impeachment, although perhaps not an indictment. Most of his speech was
a repetition of points already made by Hopkinson, Key, and Martin. But
Harper's remarks on Chase's charge to the Baltimore grand jury were new,
that article having been left to him.
"Is it not lawful," he asked, "for an aged patriot of the Revolution to
warn his fellow-citizens of dangers, by which he supposes their
liberties and happiness to be threatened?" That was all that Chase's
speech from the bench in Baltimore amounted to. Did his office take from
a judge "the liberty of speech which belongs to every citizen"? Judges
often made political speeches on the stump--"What law forbids [them] to
exercise these rights by a charge from the bench?" That practice had
"been sanctioned by the custom of this country from the beginning of the
Revolution to this day."
Harper cited many instances of the delivery by judges of political
charges to grand juries, beginning with the famous appeal to the people
to fight for independence from British rule, made in a charge to a South
Carolina grand jury in 1776.[552]
The blows of Chase's strong counsel, falling in unbroken succession, had
shaken the nerve of the House managers. One of these, Joseph H.
Nicholson of Maryland, now replied. Posterity would indeed be the final
judge of Samuel Chase. Warren Hastings had been acquitted; "but is there
any who hears me, that believes he was innocent?" The judgment of the
Senate involved infinitely more than the fortunes of Chase; by it "must
ultimately be determined whether justice shall hereafter be impartially
administered or whether the rights of the citizen are to be prostrated
at the feet of overbearing and tyrannical judges."
Nicholson denied that the House managers had "resorted to the forlorn
hope of contending that an impeachment was not a criminal prosecution,
but a mere inquest of office.... If declarations of this kind have been
made, in the name of the Managers, I here disclaim them. We do contend
that this is a criminal prosecution, for offenses committed in the
discharge of high official duties."[553]
The Senate was dumbfounded, the friends of Chase startled with joyful
surprise; a gasp of amazement ran through the overcrowded Chamber!
Nicholson had abandoned the Republican position--and at a moment when
Harper had all but admitted it to be sound. What could this mean but
that the mighty onslaughts of Martin and Hopkinson had disconcerted the
managers, or that Republican Senators were showing to the leaders signs
of weakening in support of the party doctrine.
At any rate, Nicholson's admission was an irretrievable blunder. He
should have stoutly championed his party's theory upon which Chase had
been impeached and thus far tried, ignored the subject entirely, or
remained silent. Sadly confused, he finally reversed his argument and
swung back to the original Republican theory.
He cited many hypothetical cases where an officer could not be haled
before a criminal court, but could be impeached. One of these must have
furnished cause for secret mirth to many a Senator: "It is possible,"
said Nicholson, "that the day may arrive when a President of the United
States ... may endeavor to influence [Congress] by holding out threats
or inducements to them.... The hope of an office may be held out to a
Senator; and I think it cannot be doubted, that for this the President
would be liable to impeachment, although there is no positive law
forbidding it."
Lucky for Nicholson that Martin had spoken before him and could not
reply; fortunate for Jefferson that the "impudent Federal Bulldog,"[554]
as the President afterward styled Martin, could not now be heard. For
his words would have burned the paper on which the reporters transcribed
them. Every Senator knew how patronage and all forms of Executive
inducement and coercion had been used by the Administration in the
passage of most important measures--the Judiciary repeal, the Pickering
impeachment, the Yazoo compromise, the trial of Chase. From the floor of
the House John Randolph had just denounced, with blazing wrath,
Jefferson's Postmaster-General for offering Government contracts to
secure votes for the Yazoo compromise.[555]
For two hours and a half Nicholson continued,[556] devoting himself
mainly to the conduct of Chase during the trial of Fries. He closed by
pointing out the inducements to a National judge to act as a tyrannical
tool of a partisan administration--the offices with which he could be
bribed, the promotions by which he could be rewarded. The influence of
the British Ministry over the judges has been "too flagrant to be
mistaken." For example, in Ireland "an overruling influence has crumbled
[an independent judiciary] into ruins. The demon of destruction has
entered their courts of justice, and spread desolation over the land.
Execution has followed execution, until the oppressed, degraded and
insulted nation has been made to tremble through every nerve, and to
bleed at every pore."
The fate of Ireland would be that of America, if an uncontrolled
Judiciary were allowed to carry out, without fear of impeachment, the
will of a high-handed President, in order to win the preferments he had
to offer. Already "some of our judges have been elevated to places of
high political importance.... Let us nip the evil in the bud, or it may
grow to an enormous tree, bearing destruction upon every branch."[557]
Cæsar A. Rodney of Delaware strove to repair the havoc Nicholson had
wrought; he made it worse. The trial was, he said, "a spectacle truly
solemn and impressive ... a trial of the first importance, because of
the first impression; ... a trial ... whose novelty and magnitude have
excited so much interest ... that it seems to have superseded for the
moment, not only every other grave object or pursuit, but every other
fashionable amusement or dissipation."[558]
Rodney flattered Burr, whose conduct of the trial had been "an example
worthy of imitation." He cajoled the Senators, whose attitude he had
"observed with heartfelt pleasure and honest pride"; and he warned them
not to take as a precedent the case of Warren Hastings, "that destroyer
of the people of Asia, that devastator of the East,"--murderer of men,
violator of _zenanas_, destroyer of sacred treaties, but yet acquitted
by the British House of Lords.
Counsel for Chase had spoken with "the fascinating voice of eloquence
and the deluding tongue of ingenuity"; but Rodney would avoid
"everything like declamation" and speak "in the temperate language of
reason."[559] He was sure that "the weeping voice of history will be
heard to deplore the oppressive acts and criminal excesses [of Samuel
Chase].... In the dark catalogue of criminal enormities, perhaps few are
to be found of deeper dye" than those named in the articles of
impeachment. "The independence of the Judiciary, the political tocsin of
the day, and _the alarm bell of the night_, has been rung through every
change in our ears.... The poor hobby has been literally rode to death."
Rodney was for a "rational independence of the Judiciary," but not for
the "inviolability of judges more than of Kings.[560] In this country I
am afraid the doctrine has been carried to such an extravagant length,
that the Judiciary may be considered like a spoiled child."
An independent Judiciary, indeed! "We all know that an associate justice
may sigh for promotion, and may be created a Chief Justice,[561]
while ... more than one Chief Justice has been appointed a Minister
Plenipotentiary."[562] With what result? Had judges stood aloof from
politics--or had they "united in the _Io triumphe_ which the votaries
and idolators of power have sung to those who were seated in the car of
Government? Have they made no offerings at the shrine of party; have
they not preached political sermons from the bench, in which they have
joined chorus with the anonymous scribblers of the day and the infuriate
instruments of faction?"[563]
In this fashion Rodney began a song of praise of Jefferson, for the
beneficence of whose Administration "the lamentable annals of mankind
afford no example." After passing through many "citadels" and "Scean
gates," and other forms of rhetorical architecture, he finally
discovered Chase "seated in a curricle of passion" which the Justice had
"driven on, Phæton-like, ... with destruction, persecution, and
oppression" following.
At last the orator attempted to discuss the law of the impeachment,
taking the double ground that an officer could be removed for any act
that two thirds of the Senate believed to be not "good behavior," and
that the Chase impeachment was "a criminal prosecution." For parts of
two days[564] Rodney examined every phase of the charges in a
distracting mixture of high-flown language, scattered learning,
extravagant metaphor, and jumbled logic.[565] His speech was a wretched
performance, so cluttered with tawdry rhetoric and disjointed argument
that it would have been poor even as a stump speech.
In an address that enraged the New England Federalists, Randolph closed
for the House managers.[566] He was late in arriving at the Senate
Chamber. He had been so ill the day before that Nicholson, because of
Randolph's "habitual indisposition," had asked the Senate to meet two
hours later than the usual time.[567] Sick as he was, without his notes
(which he had lost), Randolph nevertheless made the best argument for
the prosecution. Wasting no time, he took up the theory of impeachment
upon which, he said, "the wildest opinions have been advanced"--for
instance, "that an offense, to be impeachable, must be indictable." Why,
then, had the article on impeachment been placed in the Constitution at
all? Why "not have said, at once, that any ... officer ... convicted on
indictment should (_ipso facto_) be removed from office? This would be
coming at the thing by a short and obvious way."[568]
Suppose a President should veto every act of Congress
"indiscriminately"; it was his Constitutional right to do so; he could
not be indicted, but would anybody say he could not be impeached? Or if,
at a short session, the President should keep back until the last moment
all bills passed within the previous ten days, as the Constitution
authorized him to do, so that it would be a physical impossibility for
the two Houses to pass the rejected measures over the President's veto,
he could not be indicted for this abuse of power; but surely "he could
be impeached, removed and disqualified."[569]
Randolph's Virginia soul was deeply stirred by what he considered
Chase's alternate effrontery and cowardice. Is such a character "fit to
preside in a court of justice?... Today, haughty, violent, imperious;
tomorrow, humble, penitent and submissive.... Is this a character to
dispense law and justice to this nation? No, Sir!" Randolph then drew an
admirable picture of the ideal judge: "firm, indeed, but temperate, mild
though unyielding, neither a blustering bravo, nor a timid
poltroon."[570]
As far as he could go without naming him, Randolph described John
Marshall. Not without result had the politically experienced Chief
Justice conciliated the House managers in the manner that had so
exasperated the Federalist Senators. He would not thereafter be
impeached if John Randolph could prevent.
With keen pleasure at the annoyance he knew his words would give to
Jefferson,[571] Randolph continued to praise Marshall. The rejection of
Colonel Taylor's testimony at the Callender trial was contrary to "the
universal practice of our courts." On this point "what said the Chief
Justice of the United States," on whose evidence Randolph said he
specially relied? "He never knew such a case [to] occur before. He never
heard a similar objection advanced by any court, until that instance.
And this is the cautious and guarded language of a man placed in the
delicate situation of being compelled to give testimony against a
brother judge."
With an air of triumph Randolph asked: "Can anyone doubt Mr. Marshall's
thorough acquaintance with our laws? Can it be pretended that any man is
better versed in their theory and practice? And yet in all his extensive
reading, his long and extensive practice, in the many trials of which he
has been spectator, and the yet greater number at which he has assisted,
he had never witnessed such a case." Chase alone had discovered "this
fatal novelty, this new and horrible doctrine that threatens at one blow
all that is valuable in our criminal jurisprudence."
Had Martin shown that Chase was right in requiring questions to be
reduced to writing? "Here again," declared Randolph, "I bottom myself
upon the testimony of the same great man, yet more illustrious for his
abilities than for the high station that he fills, eminent as it is."
And he recited the substance of Marshall's testimony on this point.
Consider his description of the bearing of Chase toward counsel! "I
again ask you, what said the Chief Justice?... And what did he
_look_?[572] He felt all the delicacy of his situation, and, as he could
not approve, he declined giving any opinion on the demeanor of his
associate."[573] In such manner Randolph extolled Marshall.
Again he apostrophized the Chief Justice. If Fries and Callender "had
had fair trials, our lips would have been closed in eternal silence.
Look at the case of Logwood: The able and excellent judge whose worth
was never fully known until he was raised to the bench ... uttered not
one syllable that could prejudice the defense of the prisoner." Once
more he contrasted the judicial manners and rulings of Marshall with
those of Chase: "The Chief Justice knew that, sooner or later, the law
was an over-match for the dishonest, and ... he disdained to descend
from his great elevation to the low level of a public prosecutor."
The sick man spoke for two hours and a half, his face often distorted
and his body writhing with pain. Finally his tense nerves gave way. Only
public duty had kept him to his task, he said. "In a little time and I
will dismiss you to the suggestions of your own consciences. My weakness
and want of ability prevent me from urging my cause as I could wish,
but"--here the overwrought and exhausted man broke into tears--"it is
the last day of my sufferings and of yours."
Mastering his indisposition, however, Randolph closed in a passage of
genuine power: "We adjure you, on behalf of the House of Representatives
and of all the people of the United States, to exorcise from our Courts
the baleful spirit of party, to give an awful memento to our judges. In
the name of the nation, I demand at your hands the award of justice and
of law."[574]
So ended this unequal forensic contest in one of the most fateful trials
in American history. The whole country eagerly awaited tidings of the
judgment to be rendered by the Senatorial tribunal. The fate of the
Supreme Court, the character of the National Judiciary, the career of
John Marshall, depended upon it. Even union or disunion was involved;
for if Chase should be convicted, another and perhaps final impulse
would be given to the secessionist movement in New England, which had
been growing since the Republican attack on the National Judiciary in
1802.[575]
When the Senate convened at half-past twelve on March 1, 1805, a dense
mass of auditors filled every inch of space in the Senate Chamber.[576]
Down the narrow passageway men were seen bearing a couch on which lay
Senator Uriah Tracy of Connecticut, pale and sunken from sickness.
Feebly he rose and took one of the red-covered seats of the Senatorial
judges.[577]
"The Sergeants-at-Arms will face the spectators and seize and commit to
prison the first person who makes the smallest noise or disturbance,"
sternly ordered Aaron Burr.
"The secretary will read the first article of impeachment," he directed.
"Senator Adams of Massachusetts! How say you? Is Samuel Chase, the
respondent, guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors as charged in the
article just read?"
"Not guilty!" responded John Quincy Adams.
When the name of Stephen R. Bradley, Republican Senator from Vermont,
was reached, he rose in his place and voted against conviction. The
auditors were breathless, the Chamber filled with the atmosphere of
suspense. It was the first open break in the Republican ranks. Two more
such votes and the carefully planned battle would be lost to Jefferson
and his party.
"Not guilty!" answered John Gaillard, Republican Senator from South
Carolina.
Another Republican defection and all would be over. It came from the
very next Senator whose name Aaron Burr pronounced, and from one whose
answer will forever remain an enigma.
"Senator Giles of Virginia! How say you? Is Samuel Chase guilty of the
high crimes and misdemeanors as charged in the articles just read?"
"Not guilty!"
Only sixteen Senators voted to impeach on the first article, nine
Republicans aligning themselves with the nine Federalists.
The vote on the other articles showed varying results; on the fourth,
fourteen Senators responded "Guilty!"; on the fifth, the Senate was
unanimous for Chase.
Upon the eighth article--Chase's political charge to the Baltimore grand
jury--the desperate Republicans tried to recover, Giles now leading
them. Indeed, it may be for this that he cast his first vote with his
party brethren from the North--he may have thought thus to influence
them on the one really strong charge against the accused Justice. If so,
his stratagem was futile. The five Northern Republicans (Bradley and
Smith of Vermont, Mitchell and Smith of New York, and John Smith of
Ohio) stood firm for acquittal as did the obstinate John Gaillard of
South Carolina.[578]
The punctilious Burr ordered the names of Senators and their recorded
answers to be read for verification.[579] He then announced the result:
"It appears that there is not a constitutional majority of votes finding
Samuel Chase, Esq. guilty of any one article. It therefore becomes my
duty to declare that Samuel Chase, Esq. stands acquitted of all the
articles exhibited by the House of Representatives against him."[580]
The fight was over. There were thirty-four Senators, nine of them
Federalists, twenty-five Republicans. Twenty-two votes were necessary
to convict. At their strongest the Republicans had been able to muster
less than four fifths of their entire strength. Six of their number--the
New York and Vermont Senators, together with John Gaillard of South
Carolina and John Smith of Ohio--had answered "not guilty" on every
article.
For the first time since his appointment, John Marshall was secure as
the head of the Supreme Bench.[581] For the first time since Jefferson's
election, the National Judiciary was, for a period, rendered
independent. For the first time in five years, the Federalist members of
the Nation's highest tribunal could go about their duties without fear
that upon them would fall the avenging blade of impeachment which had
for half a decade hung over them. One of the few really great crises in
American history had passed.[582]
"The greatest and most important trial ever held in this nation has
terminated justly," wrote Senator Plumer to his son. "The venerable
judge whose head bears the frost of seventy winters,[583] is honorably
acquitted. I never witnessed, in any place, such a display of learning
as the counsel for the accused exhibited."[584]
Chagrin, anger, humiliation, raged in Randolph's heart. His long legs
could not stride as fast as his frenzy, when, rushing from the scene of
defeat, he flew to the floor of the House. There he offered an amendment
to the Constitution providing that the President might remove National
judges on the joint address of both Houses of Congress.[585] "Tempest in
the House," records Cutler.[586]
Nicholson was almost as frantic with wrath, and quickly followed with a
proposal so to amend the Constitution that State Legislatures might, at
will, recall Senators.[587]
Republicans now began to complain to their party foes of one another.
Over a "rubber of whist" with John Quincy Adams, Senator Jackson of
Georgia, even before the trial, had spoken "slightingly both of Mr. John
Randolph and of Mr. Nicholson";[588] and this criticism of Republicans
_inter se_ now increased.
Jefferson's feelings were balanced between grief and glee; his mourning
over the untoward result of his cherished programme of judicial reform
was ameliorated by his pleasure at the overthrow of the unruly
Randolph,[589] who had presumed to dissent from the President's Georgia
land policy.[590] The great politician's cup of disappointment, which
the acquittal of Chase had filled, was also sweetened by the knowledge
that Republican restlessness in the Northern States would be quieted;
the Federalists who were ready, on other grounds, to come to his
standard would be encouraged to do so; and the New England secession
propaganda would be deprived of a strong argument. He confided to the
gossipy William Plumer, the Federalist New Hampshire Senator, that
"impeachment is a farce which will not be tried again."[591]
The Chief Justice of the United States, his peril over, was silent and
again serene, his wonted composure returned, his courage restored. He
calmly awaited the hour when the wisdom of events should call upon him
to render another and immortal service to the American Nation. That hour
was not to be long delayed.
FOOTNOTES:
[430] Giles was appointed Senator August 11, 1804, by the Governor to
fill the unexpired term of Abraham Venable who resigned in order that
Giles might be sent to the Senate. In December the Legislature elected
him for the full term. Upon taking his seat Giles immediately became the
Republican leader of the Senate. (See Anderson, 93.)
[431] Dec. 21, 1804, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 322-23.
[432] Dec. 21, 1804. _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 322-23.
[433] Plumer, 274-75; and see especially Plumer, Jan. 5, 1804,
"Congress," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[434] The powerful Republican organ, the _Aurora_, of Philadelphia, thus
indicted the National Judiciary: Because judges could not be removed,
"many wrongs are daily done by the courts to humble, obscure, or poor
suitors.... It is a prodigeous monster in a free government to see a
class of men set apart, not simply to administer the laws, but who
exercise a legislative and even an executive power, directly in defiance
and contempt of the Constitution." (_Aurora_, Jan. 28, 1805, as quoted
in Corwin, 41.) Professor Corwin says that this utterance was approved
by Jefferson.
[435] "Mr. Giles from Virginia ... is the Ministerial leader in the
Senate." (Plumer to Thompson, Dec. 23, 1804, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
"I considered M^{r.} Giles as the ablest _practical_ politician of the
whole party enlisted under M^{r.} Jefferson's banners." (Pickering to
Marshall, Jan. 24, 1826, Pickering MSS. Mass. Hist. Soc.)
[436] William Johnson of South Carolina, appointed March 26, 1804, vice
William Moore, resigned. Johnson was a stanch Jeffersonian when
appointed. He was thirty-three years old at the time he was made
Associate Justice.
[437] It is impossible to put too much emphasis on Giles's avowal. His
statement is the key to the Chase impeachment.
[438] Adams to his father, March 8, 1805, _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford,
III, 108.
[439] Pickering to Lyman, Feb. 11, 1804, _N.E. Federalism_: Adams, 344;
Lodge: _Cabot_, 444; also see Plumer, 275.
[440] Plumer to Mason, Jan. 14, 1803, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[441] Bayard to Bassett, Feb. 12, 1802, _Bayard Papers_: Donnan, 148.
[442] Channing: _Jeffersonian System_, 119-20; Adams: _U.S._ II, 225-27,
235; Anderson, 93, 95.
[443] Smith to Plumer, Feb. 11, 1804, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[444] See _infra_, 176-77, 196.
[445] 2 Cranch, 358-405.
[446] See vol. II, 481-82, of this work.
[447] See vol. II, 71-74, of this work.
[448] Fifteen years passed before a critical occasion called for another
assertion by Marshall of the doctrine of implied powers; and that
occasion produced one of Marshall's greatest opinions--in the judgment
of many, the greatest of all his writings. (See McCulloch _vs._
Maryland, vol. IV, chap. VI, of this work.)
[449] Addison's address is historically important; it perfectly shows
the distrust of democracy which all Federalist leaders then felt. Among
other things, he pleaded for the independence of the Judiciary, asserted
that it was their exclusive province to decide upon the
constitutionality of laws, and stoutly maintained that no judge could be
impeached except for an offense for which he also could be indicted.
(_Addison Trial_, 101-43.)
[450] The petition praying for the impeachment of Addison was sent to
the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on January 11, 1802. On March
23, 1802, that body transmitted articles of impeachment to the State
Senate. The trial was held in early January, 1803. Addison was convicted
January 26, 1803. (_Ib._)
[451] Jefferson's Message was transmitted to the House, February 4,
1803, nine days after the conviction of Addison. It enclosed a "letter
and affidavits" setting forth Pickering's conduct on the bench in the
case of the ship Eliza, and suggested that "the Constitution has
confided [to the House] a power of instituting proceedings of redress."
(_Annals_, 7th Cong. 2d Sess. 460.)
On March 2 the committee reported a resolution for Pickering's
impeachment because of the commission by him of "high crimes and
misdemeanors," and, though a few Federalists tried to postpone a vote,
the resolution was adopted immediately.
[452] Depositions of Samuel Tenney, Ammi R. Cutter, Joshua Brackett,
Edward St. Loe Livermore. (_Annals_, 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 334-42.)
[453] Testimony of John S. Sherburne, Thomas Chadbourne, and Jonathan
Steele. (_Ib._ 351-56.)
[454] The wise and comprehensive Federalist Judiciary Act of 1801
covered just such cases. It provided that when a National judge was
unable to discharge the duties of his office, the circuit judges should
name one of their members to fill his place. (See _Annals_, 6th Cong. 2d
Sess. 1545.) This very thing had been done in the case of Judge
Pickering (see McMaster: _U.S._ III, 166). It is curious that, in the
debate, the Republicans did not denounce this as unconstitutional.
[455] Plumer, Jan. 5, 1804, "Congress," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[456] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 328-30.
[457] _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 299-300.
[458] "This," records Adams, "had evidently been settled ... out of
court. And this is the way in which these men administer justice."
(_Ib._)
[459] "In the House ... speeches are making every day to dictate to the
Senate how they are to proceed; and the next morning they proceed
accordingly." (_Ib._ 301-02.)
[460] Feb. 18, 1803, Plumer, 253.
[461] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 365.
[462] See _Memoirs, J. Q. A._; Adams, I, 302-04, for a vivid account of
the whole incident.
[463] Plumer, March 10, 1804, "Congress," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[464] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 367. "The independence of our
judiciary is no more ... I hope the time is not far distant when the
people east of the North river _will manage their own affairs in their
own way_; ... and that the _sound_ part will separate from the
_corrupt_." (Plumer to Morse, March 10, 1804, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.) On
the unconstitutional and revolutionary conduct of the Republicans in the
Pickering impeachment trial see Adams: _U.S._ II, 158.
[465] Senators John Armstrong of New York, Stephen R. Bradley of
Vermont, and David Stone of North Carolina. Jonathan Dayton of New
Jersey and Samuel White of Delaware, Federalists, also withdrew.
(_Annals_, 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 366.) And see _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams,
I, 308-09; J. Q. Adams to his father, March 8, 1805, _Writings, J. Q.
A._: Ford, III, 110; Plumer to Park, March 13, 1804, Plumer MSS. Lib.
Cong.
Senator John Brown of Kentucky, a Republican, "could not be induced to
join the majority, but, unwilling to offend them, he obtained & has
taken a leave of absence." (Plumer to Morse, March 10, 1804, Plumer MSS.
Lib. Cong.) Senator Brown had been elected President _pro tem._ of the
Senate, January 23, 1804.
Burr "abruptly left the Senate" to attend to his candidacy for the
governorship of New York. (Plumer, March 10, 1804, "Congress," Plumer
MSS. Lib. Cong.) Senator Franklin of North Carolina was then chosen
President _pro tem._ and presided during the trial of Pickering. But
Burr returned in time to arrange for, and preside over, the trial of
Justice Chase.
[466] The Republicans even refused to allow the report of the
proceedings to be "printed in the Appendix to the Journals of the
Session." (_Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 311.)
The conviction and removal of Pickering alarmed the older Federalists
almost as much as did the repeal of the Judiciary Act. "The _demon_ of
party governed the decision. All who condemned were Jeffersonians, and
all who pronounced the accused not guilty were Federalists." (Pickering
to Lyman, March 4, 1804, _N.E. Federalism_: Adams, 358-59; Lodge:
_Cabot_, 450.)
"I really wish those in New England who are boasting of the independence
of our Judiciary would reflect on what a slender tenure Judges hold
their offices whose political sentiments are at variance with the
dominant party." (Plumer to Park, March 13, 1804, Plumer MSS. Lib.
Cong.)
[467] Exhibit VIII, _Chase Trial_, Appendix, 61-62; also see _Annals_,
8th Cong. 2d Sess. 675-76.
[468] June 13, 1803.
[469] See _Chase Trial_, 101 _et seq._
[470] See McMaster: _U.S._ III, 162-70.
[471] Jefferson to Nicholson, May 13, 1803, _Jefferson Writings_:
Washington, IV, 484.
[472] Macon to Nicholson, Aug. 6, 1803, Dodd: _Life of Nathaniel Macon_,
187-88. Macon seriously doubted the expediency and legality of the
impeachment of Chase. However, he voted with his party.
[473] Dodd, 187-88.
[474] Adams to Rush, June 22, 1806, _Old Family Letters_, 100.
[475] Chase "is very obnoxious to the _powers that be_ & must be
_denounced_, but articles will not be exhibited agt him this session.
The Accusers have collected a volume of exparte evidence against him,
printed & published it in pamphlets, & now it is publishing in the Court
gazette to be diffused in every direction.... If a party to a suit at
law, ... was to practice in this manner he would merit punishment."
(Plumer to Smith, March 11, 1804, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[476] See _supra_, chap. I. For the articles of impeachment see
_Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 85-88; _Chase Trial_, 10-11.
The Republicans, for a time, contemplated the impeachment of Richard
Peters, Judge of the United States Court for the District of
Pennsylvania, who sat with Chase during the trial of Fries. (_Annals_,
8th Cong. 1st Sess. 823-24, 850, 873-74.) But his name was dropped
because he had not "so acted in his judiciary capacity as to require the
interposition of the Constitutional powers of this House." (_Ib._ 1171.)
Peters was terrified and turned upon his fellow judge. He showered
Pickering and other friends with letters, complaining of the conduct of
his judicial associate. "If I am to be immolated let it be with some
other Victim--or for my own Sins." (Peters to Pickering, Jan. 26, 1804,
Pickering MSS. Mass. Hist. Soc.)
[477] J. Q. Adams to his father, March 14, 1805, _Writings, J. Q. A._:
Ford, III, 116.
[478] Dec. 20, 1804, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 321.
[479] Plumer to Cogswell, Jan. 4, 1805, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.; and see
Plumer to Sheafe, Jan. 9, 1805, Plumer MSS. _loc. cit._
[480] Bayard to Harper, Jan. 30, 1804, _Bayard Papers_: Donnan, 160.
[481] Pickering to Lyman, March 14, 1804, Lodge: _Cabot_, 450; also
_N.E. Federalism_: Adams, 359.
[482] Ames to Dwight, Jan. 20, 1805, Ames, I, 338.
[483] The Yazoo fraud. No other financial scandal in our history equaled
this, if one considers the comparative wealth and population of the
country at the times other various great frauds were perpetrated. For an
account of it, see _infra_, chap. X.
[484] For Randolph's frantic speech on the Yazoo fraud and Marshall's
opinion in Fletcher _vs_. Peck, see _infra_, chap. X.
[485] This form was adopted in the trial of Judge Pickering. See
_Annals_, 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 319.
[486] See Plumer, 323.
[487] Channing: _U.S._ IV, 287.
[488] Marshall to James M. Marshall, April 1, 1804, MS.
[489] William Marshall. See _infra_, 191-92.
[490] John Wickham, leader of the Richmond bar and one of Marshall's
intimate friends.
[491] See _supra_, chap. I; and _infra_.
[492] See 1 Kings, XII, 10.
[493] Marshall to Chase, Jan. 23, 1804, Etting MSS. Pa. Hist. Soc.
[494] See _infra_, 192-96.
[495] See _supra_, chap. III, 113.
[496] "M^r Burr had the sole power of making the arrangements ... for
the trial." (Plumer to Sheafe, Jan. 9, 1805, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[497] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 100; _Chase Trial_, 2-5.
[498] Plumer to Norris, Nov. 7, 1804, Plumer, 329.
[499] See _infra_, chap. VI.
[500] See J. Q. Adams to his father, Jan. 5, 1805, _Writings, J. Q. A._:
Ford, III, 104.
[501] Plumer, 274. "John S. Sherburne, Jonathan Steele, Michael McCleary
and Richard Cutts Shannon were the principal witnesses against
Pickering. Sherburne was appointed Judge [in Pickering's place]; Steele,
District Attorney; McCleary, Marshal; and Shannon, Clerk of the
Court.... Steele, expecting to have been Judge refused to accept his
appointment, assigning as the reason his agency in the removal of
Pickering."
[502] Plumer, 329-30; and see Adams: _U.S._ II, 220.
[503] Nov. 26, 1804, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 317-18; and Adams,
_U.S._ II, 220-22.
"Burr is flattered and feared by the administration." (Plumer to
Thompson, Dec. 23, 1804, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.; and Plumer to Wilson,
Dec. 7, 1804, Plumer MSS. _loc. cit._)
[504] Davis, II, 360; also Adams: _U.S._ 218-44.
"It must be acknowledged that Burr has displayed much ability, and since
the first day I have seen nothing of partiality." (Cutler to Torrey,
March 1, 1805, Cutler: _Life, Journals and Correspondence of Manasseh
Cutler_, II, 193.)
At the beginning of the trial, however, Burr's rigor irritated the
Senate: "Mr. Burr is remarkably testy--he acts more of the tyrant--is
impatient, passionate--scolds--he is in a rage because we do not sit
longer." (Plumer, Feb. 8, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
"Just as the time for adjourning to morrow was to be put ... Mr. Burr
said he wished to inform the Senate of some irregularities that he had
observed in the Court.
"Some of the Senators as he said during the trial & while a witness was
under examination walked between him & the Managers--others eat
apples--& some eat cake in their seats.
"Mr. Pickering said he eat an apple--but it was at a time when the
President had retired from the chair. Burr replied he did not mean
him--he did not see him.
"Mr. Wright said he eat cake--he had a just right to do so--he was
faint--but he disturbed nobody--He never would submit to be schooled &
catechised in this manner.
"At this instance a motion was made by Bradley, who also had eaten cake,
for an adjournment. Burr told Wright he was not in order--sit down. The
Senate adjourned--& I left Burr and Wright scolding.
"Really, _Master Burr_, you need a ferule, or birch to enforce your
lectures on polite behavior!" (_Ib._ Feb. 12, 1805; also _ib._ Jan. 2,
1805.) Burr was sharply criticized by the _Washington Federalist_,
January 8, for his rude conduct at the beginning of the trial.
[505] Plumer to Sheafe, Jan. 1805, Plumer, 330-31.
[506] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 92; _Chase Trial_, 4.
[507] Dwight: _Signers of the Declaration of Independence_, 245-52.
[508] Hudson: _Journalism in the United States, 1690-1872_, 214; and see
Story to Bramble, June 10, 1807, Story, I, 154.
[509] "In person, in manners, in unwieldy strength, in severity of
reproof, in real tenderness of heart; and above all in intellect," he
was "the living, I had almost said the exact, image of Samuel Johnson."
(Story to Fay, Feb. 25, 1808, Story, I, 168.)
Chase's career had been stirring and important. Carefully educated by
his father, an Episcopal clergyman, and thoroughly grounded in the law,
he became eminent at the Maryland bar at a very early age. From the
first his aggressive character asserted itself. He was rudely
independent and, as a member of the Maryland House of Burgesses, treated
the royal governor and his Tory partisans with contemptuous defiance.
When the British attempted to enforce the Stamp Act, he joined a band of
high-spirited young patriots who called themselves "The Sons of
Liberty," and led them in their raids upon public offices, which they
broke open, seizing and destroying the stamps and burning in effigy the
stamp distributor.
His violent and fearless opposition to British rule and officials made
young Chase so popular that he was elected as one of the five Maryland
delegates to the first Continental Congress that assembled during the
winter of 1774. He was reëlected the following year, and was foremost in
urging the measures of armed defense that ended in the appointment of
Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the American forces. Disregarding
the instructions of his State, Chase hotly championed the adoption of
the Declaration of Independence, and was one of the signers of that
document.
On the floor of Congress he denounced a member as a traitor--one Zubly,
a Georgia parson--who in terror fled the country. Chase continued in the
Continental Congress until 1778 and was appointed a member of almost
every important committee of that body. He became the leader of his
profession in Maryland, was appointed Chief Justice of the Criminal
Court of Baltimore, and elected a member of the Maryland Convention,
called to ratify the National Constitution. Thereafter, he was made
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State. In 1796, President
Washington appointed Chase as Associate Justice of the National Supreme
Court of which he was conceded to be one of the ablest members. (Dwight,
245-52.)
[510] See Plumer to his brother, Feb. 25, 1805, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[511] _Maryland Historical Society Fund-Publication No. 24_, p. 20. Burr
told Key that "he must not appear as counsel with his loose coat on."
(Plumer, Feb. 11, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[512] Adams: _U.S._ II, 227-28. Bayard strongly urged Chase to have no
counsel, but to defend himself. (Bayard to Harper, Jan. 30, 1804,
_Bayard Papers_: Donnan, 159-60.)
[513] See Story's description of Martin three years later, Story to Fay,
Feb. 16, 1808, Story, I, 163-64.
Luther Martin well illustrates the fleeting nature of the fame of even
the greatest lawyers. For two generations he was "an acknowledged leader
of the American bar," and his preëminence in that noble profession was
brightened by fine public service. Yet within a few years after his
death, he was totally forgotten, and to-day few except historical
students know that such a man ever lived.
Martin began his practice of the law when twenty-three years of age and
his success was immediate and tremendous. His legal learning was
prodigious--his memory phenomenal.
Apparently, Martin was the heaviest drinker of that period of heavy
drinking men. The inexplicable feature of his continuous excesses was
that his mighty drinking seldom appeared to affect his professional
efficiency. Only once in his long and active career did intoxication
interfere with his work in court. (See _infra_, 586.)
Passionate in his loves and hates, he abhorred Jefferson with all the
ardor of his violent nature; and his favorite denunciation of any bad
man was, "Sir! he is as great a scoundrel as Thomas Jefferson."
For thirty years Martin was the Attorney-General of Maryland. He was the
most powerful member of his State in the Convention that framed the
National Constitution which he refused to sign, opposing the
ratification of it in arguments of such signal ability that forty years
afterward John C. Calhoun quarried from them the material for his famous
Nullification speeches.
When, however, the Constitution was ratified and became the supreme law
of the land, Martin, with characteristic wholeheartedness, supported it
loyally and championed the Administrations of Washington and Adams.
He was the lifelong friend of the impeached justice, to whom he owed his
first appointment as Attorney-General of Maryland as well as great
assistance and encouragement in the beginning of his career. Chase and
he were also boon companions, each filled with admiration for the
talents and attainments of the other, and strikingly similar in their
courage and fidelity to friends and principles. So the lawyer threw
himself into the fight for the persecuted judge with all his astonishing
strength.
When, in his old age, he was stricken with paralysis, the Maryland
Legislature placed a tax of five dollars annually on all lawyers for his
support. After Martin's death the bench and bar of Baltimore passed a
resolution that "we will wear mourning for the space of thirty days."
(_American Law Review_, I, 279.)
No biography of Martin has ever been written; but there are two
excellent sketches of his life, one by Ashley M. Gould in _Great
American Lawyers_: Lewis, II, 3-46; and the other by Henry P. Goddard in
the _Md. Hist. Soc. Fund. Pub. No. 24._
[514] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 160-61. The case to which Randolph
refers was that of the United States _vs._ Thomas Logwood, indicted in
April, 1801, for counterfeiting. Logwood was tried in the United States
Circuit Court at Richmond during June, 1804. Marshall, sitting with
District Judge Cyrus Griffin, presided. Notwithstanding Marshall's
liberality, Logwood was convicted and Marshall sentenced him to ten
years' imprisonment at hard labor. (Order Book No. 4, 464, Records, U.S.
Circuit Court, Richmond.)
[515] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 163-65; _Chase Trial_, 18. Randolph
disgusted the Federalists. "This speech is the most feeble--the most
incorrect that I ever heard him make." (Plumer, Feb. 9, 1805, "Diary,"
Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[516] Two witnesses to the Baltimore incident, George Reed and John
Montgomery, committed their testimony to memory as much "as ever a
Presbyterian clergyman did his sermon--or an Episcopalian his prayer."
(Plumer, Feb. 14, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[517] See _supra_, chap. I.
[518] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 203-05; _Chase Trial_, 36-37.
[519] Plumer, Feb. 11, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[520] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 200; _Chase Trial_, 35.
[521] See _supra_, chap. I.
[522] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 207. John Quincy Adams's description
of all of the evidence is important and entertaining:
"Not only the casual expressions dropped in private conversations among
friends and intimates, as well as strangers and adversaries, in the
recess of a bed-chamber as well as at public taverns and in stage
coaches, had been carefully and malignantly laid up and preserved for
testimony on this prosecution; not only more witnesses examined to
points of _opinion_, and called upon for discrimination to such a degree
as to say whether the deportment of the Judge was _imperative_ or
_imperious_, but hours of interrogation and answer were consumed in
evidence to _looks_, to _bows_, to tones of voice and modes of
speech--to prove the insufferable grievance that Mr. Chase had more than
once raised a laugh at the expense of Callender's counsel, and to
ascertain the tremendous fact that he had accosted the ATTORNEY GENERAL
_of Virginia_ by the appellation of _Young Gentleman_!!
"If by thumbscrews, the memory of a witness trace back for a period of
five years the features of the Judge's face, it could be darkened with a
frown, it was to be construed into rude and contumelious treatment of
the Virginia bar; if it was found lightened with a smile, 'tyrants in
all ages had been notorious for their pleasantry.'
"In short, sir, Gravity himself could not keep his countenance at the
nauseating littlenesses which were resorted to for proof of atrocious
criminality, and indignation melted into ridicule at the puerile
perseverance with which _nothings_ were accumulated, with the hope of
making _something_ by their multitude.
"All this, however, was received because Judge Chase would not suffer
his counsel to object against it. He indulged his accusers with the
utmost licence of investigation which they ever derived [_sic_], and
contented himself with observing to the court that he expected to be
judged upon the _legal_ evidence in the case." (J. Q. Adams to his
father, March 8, 1805, _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, III, 112-13.)
[523] This was the fourth member of the Marshall family upon whom
offices were bestowed while Marshall was Secretary of State. (See vol.
II, 560, of this work.)
[524] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 251-62; _Chase Trial_, 65-69. "I was
unable to give credence to his [Heath's] testimony." (Plumer, Feb. 12,
1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.) Although Heath's story was
entirely false, it has, nevertheless, found a place in serious history.
Marshall's brother made an excellent impression on the Senate. "His
answers were both prompt & lucid--There was a frankness, a fairness & I
will add a firmness that did him much credit. His testimony was [on
certain points] ... a complete defense of the accused." (_Ib._ Feb. 15,
1805.)
[525] Harvie's son, Jacquelin B. Harvie, married Marshall's daughter
Mary. (Paxton: _Marshall Family_, 100.)
[526] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 262-67; _Chase Trial_, 71.
[527] Plumer, Feb. 16, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[528] Feb. 19, 1805, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 354.
Chase did not leave Washington, and was in court when some of the
arguments were made. (See Chase to Hopkinson, March 10, 1805; Hopkinson
MSS. in possession of Edward P. Hopkinson, Phila.)
[529] Feb. 13, 1805, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 351.
[530] _Ib._ The motion to admit the public was carried by one vote only.
(Plumer, Feb. 13, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[531] Feb. 13, 1805, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 353.
[532] Feb. 20, 1805, _ib._ 355.
[533] Cutler, II, 183; also _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 313-29; _Chase
Trial_, 101-07.
[534] Plumer, Feb. 20, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[535] Cutler, II, 183.
[536] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 329-53; _Chase Trial_, 107 _et seq._
[537] _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 355-56.
[538] Plumer, Feb. 21, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[539] Adams: _U.S._ II, 231. Even Randolph praised him. (_Annals_, 8th
Cong. 2d Sess. 640.)
[540] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 354-94; _Chase Trial_, 116-49.
[541] Feb. 21, 1805, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 356.
"The effect on the auditory [was] prodigiously great." (Cutler, II,
184.)
"His argument ... was one of the most able ... I ever heard." (Plumer,
Feb. 21, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[542] Feb. 22, 1805, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 356.
[543] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 394-413; see also _Chase Trial_,
149-62; and Cutler, II, 184.
[544] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 413-29; _Chase Trial_, 162-72.
[545] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 429-82; _Chase Trial_, 173 _et seq._
[546] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 483.
[547] _Ib._ 484-87.
[548] See résumé of Franklin's indictment of the press in vol. I,
268-69, of this work.
[549] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 488; _Chase Trial_, *223.
[550] "Mr. Martin really possesses much legal information & a great fund
of good humour, keen satire & poignant wit ... he certainly has
talents." (Plumer, Feb. 23, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[551] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 489; _Chase Trial_, *224.
[552] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 556; _Chase Trial_, *205-44.
[553] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 560-62; _Chase Trial_, 237 _et seq._
[554] See Jefferson to Hay, _infra_, chap. VIII.
[555] See _infra_, chap. X.
[556] _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 358.
[557] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 582; _Chase Trial_, 237-43.
[558] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 583.
This was an under-statement of the facts; for the first time the
celebration of Washington's birthday was abandoned in the National
Capital. (Plumer, 326.) Plumer says that this was done because the
celebration might hurt Chase, "for there are senators who for the
veriest trifles may be brought to vote against him." (Feb. 22, 1805,
"Congress," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[559] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 583-84; _Chase Trial_, 243-56.
[560] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 585-87.
[561] Rodney here refers to the Republican allegation that Chase tried
to secure appointment as Chief Justice by flattering Adams through
charges to juries, rulings in court, and speeches on the stump.
[562] John Jay to England and Oliver Ellsworth to France. (See vol. II,
113, 502, of this work.)
[563] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 587-89.
[564] _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 359.
[565] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 583-641; _Chase Trial_, 243-56.
[566] Cutler announced it as "an outrageous, infuriated declamation,
which might have done honor to Marat, or Robespierre." (Cutler, II,
184.)
[567] _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 359.
[568] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 642; _Chase Trial_, 256.
[569] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 644; _Chase Trial_, 257.
[570] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 644-45; _Chase Trial_, 258.
[571] See _infra_, chap. X.
[572] See _supra_, 196.
[573] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 651-52; _Chase Trial_, 266.
[574] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 641-62. John Quincy Adams notes in
his diary that Randolph spoke for more than two hours "with as little
relation to the subject matter as possible--without order, connection,
or argument; consisting altogether of the most hackneyed commonplaces of
popular declamation." Throughout, records Adams, there was "much
distortion of face and contortion of body, tears, groans and sobs."
(_Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 359.)
"His speech ... was devoid of argument, method or consistency--but was
replete with invective & even vulgarity.... I never heard him deliver
such a weak feeble & deranged harangue." (Plumer to his wife, Feb. 28,
1805, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
"After he sat down--he threw his feet upon the table--distorted his
features & assumed an appearance as disgusting as his harangue."
(Plumer, Feb. 27, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[575] See _supra_, chaps. II and III; _infra_, chap. VI, and vol. IV,
chap. I.
[576] "There was a vast concourse of people ... and great solemnity."
(Cutler to Torrey, March 1, 1805, Cutler, II, 193.) "The galleries were
crowded--many ladies. I never witnessed so general & so deep an
anxiety." (Plumer to his wife, March 1, 1805, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[577] Plumer, 323.
[578] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 665-69; _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams,
I, 362-63.
[579] _Ib._ 363.
[580] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 669. By this time Burr had changed to
admiration the disapproval with which the Federalist Senators had, at
first, regarded his conduct of the trial. "Mr. Burr has certainly, on
the whole, done himself, the Senate, and the Nation honor by the
dignified manner in which he has presided over this high and numerous
court," testifies Senator Plumer, notwithstanding his deep prejudice
against Burr. (Plumer, March 1, 1805, "Diary," Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
[581] See Adams: _U.S._ II, 243.
[582] See Plumer, 324; _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 371; Adams: _John
Randolph_, 131-32, 152; Channing: _Jeff. System_, 120; Adams: _U.S._ II,
243.
[583] Plumer here adds six years to Chase's age--an unusual inaccuracy
in the diary of that born newspaper reporter.
[584] Plumer to his son, March 3, 1805, Plumer, 325.
[585] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1213; and see _Annual Report, Am.
Hist. Assn. 1896_, II, 64; also Adams: _U.S._ II, 240.
[586] Cutler, II, 185.
[587] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1213; and see J. Q. Adams to his
father, March 14, 1805, _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, III, 117.
[588] Jan. 30, 1805, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 341.
[589] See Adams: _U.S._ II, 243.
[590] See _infra_, chap. X.
[591] Plumer, 325. Jefferson soon took Plumer into the Republican fold.