The New York herald., 1868-03-28
Chief Justice Chase and the Impeachment
Trial.

Impeachment is prosecution of the estab-
lished law" before the highest court of the
country. 1t is not a means to settle points Of
etiquette, or style, or opinion, or politics, bat
to inquire into the official conduct of persons
holding places of trust, to find if they have
committed crimes or even such smaller
offences against the law as misdemeanors.
Impeachment asserts the supremacy of the
law-intends to fix the fact that no dignitary in
the land shall ever be so high as to stand
above the ssknown law, but is vigorously and
absolutely limited in its application to offences
| against that law It is strictly limited thus to
prevent it becoming an instrument of persecn-
tion How is it limited? By the phrase that
makes it the punishment for shigh crimes and
msdemeanors;" for these words must be taken
''in their common law sense" Impeachment
must thus have a real foundation in something
reprehensible as viewed from the standpoint
taken by the law. Thus originating on pre-
sentiment by the representatives of the people
before court in which the head of the ma
tional judiciary sits to expound the law, the
trial, though exalted in its elements and charac-
ter, yet otherwise ''diers not in essentials from
criminal prosecutions before inferior courts. !"
1t is trial in which the accusations are to
charge such offences as the law gives the Court
of Impeachment power over; in which the evil
dence as to matters of fact is to be presented
and scrutinized in which the Judge is to lay
down the law and verdict is to be rendered.
In every part it is an example Of the ordinary
machinery and methods of justice to which we
are used, differing only in its supposed greater
dignity.
Such is impeachment as regarded in the
original law on whose forms our own laws are
framed, as it is contemplated in the plain
words of the constitution, and as it must ap-
pear by all possible implication, if implication
were necessary. 1t is seen, then, that the
court which now has before it the Chief Magis-
trate of the country is composed of jury
of Senators, and is presided over by our
highest legal functionary-an arrangement
that assures an ample discrimination of the
facts that may be alleged as offences, and also
gives certainty that the case will be viewed
with regard to the law; for it was not for
nothing that the founders of our government
provided that the Chief Justice should preside
in such a trial as this. Some have supposed that
the Chief Justice was placed there that the Vice
President might not form part of the court be-
cause of his possible interest in the Presidents
removal; but the Senate, by refusing to exclude
Mr.. Wade, clearly does not hold that doctrine.
And the Senate is right; for the Chief JUS
tice was put there for another reason. He was
put there as an impersonation of the law--put
there purely with regard to his judicial func-
tion--that one tried for offences against the
law might be judged by the rules of the law.
AT the proper moment this will, of course, ap-
pear for when the evidence is all in and advo-
Gates have argued the case on either side it will
Senate as to the application of the law to what
they have heard and are to determine. In that
charge the law of impeachment will be laid
down more deliberately and lucidly than ever
hitherto Then will be stated the real nature
and purposes of such process as well as its
necessary foundation in an impeachabls
offence-in an act rcprehensible, derogatory
to the national welfare and done with evil pur-
pose. Judging the accusations before the
court by the rules of the ''already known and
established law, the Chief Justice will neces-
sarily and inevitably declare that the prose-
lous and empty for the most part, and that
only one charge is made that can by any
stretch of law be called ''impeachable, and
that even in that the purr ose necessary to
make it an offence is not shown.
Rightly the Senate would be bound by the
say that it will. 1t may be that it will end the
accused guilty in despite of the assurance Of
the authorized functionary that there is no law
for it that it may transcend its proper powers, |
as juries have done before this, and presume
to Judge both the law and the facts Yet it is
at least possible that there may be more than
a third Of the Senate not prepared to take so
dangerous a responsibility, and in that event
impeachment would fail. In either case how
ever in what position viii the republican
party find itself at the close of the trial? If
the President be acquitted the very fact viii
be damning evidence against his accusers,
and in Mr.. Johnson's triumph the republicans
must see their own ruin before the country If
the President be found guilty it will be in def
ance of the law, in fragrant, notorious violation
of the law, the very thing for which it pre-
tends to try him. Can any party do such
thing and live in the respect of the peopes
Regarded in any way impeachment is the
deathbow Of the republican party. That
party has committed itself to food from
which it cannot come out alive, and goes for
ward like those animals that cut their throats
with every stroke of the foot as they swim.
For such a position 1t may thank its own in
discretion and heedlessness in giving up all