The weekly clarion., 1876-01-12


of the State, in consequence of his gross
abuse of power--his omission of the
things he ought to have done, and com.
mission of the things he ought not to
have done--we are met by the inquiry,
Has he committed any of the offences
which are clearly defined as impeachable
by the Constitution, and must his offences
be indictable to be Improbable
We answer the first inquiry in the lam
guage of Manager Butler, in the trial of
President Johnson:
The House of Representatives shall
solely i'm peach; the Senate only shall
try, and in case of conviction, the
Judgment shall alone be removal from
office, and disqualification for office, or
both. These mandatory provisions became
necessary, to adapt well known procedure
OF the mother country to the institutions of
the then infant republic Bat siaqle Incl
dent only Of the business ,1as left to construc-
ton, and that concerns the oFe,ces end inca
pactttes 1ohich are the ground aoork of tnapeach-
ment. This was wisely done. because human
foresight is inadequate, and human intellect
fails in the task of anticipating and provi-
ding for, by positive enactment, all the inf
mite gradations of human wrong and sin.
| by which the liberties of q people and the
safety of nation may be endangered from
the imbecility, corruption and unhallowed
ambition OF IT'S rulers.
| In other words, the causes for the ap-
| plication of the remedy of impeachment
and removal were purposely not defined,
but were left to the discretion of the
| Legislature, whose members are respon-
| sible to their consciences and the people,
for the wise and patriotic use of the
power with which they are invested.
In reply to the second inquiry, we will
again rely for our guidance upon the aQ-
thority cited by Manager Butler, in the
case above mentioned. Addressing the |
Senate, he said ''I pray leave to lay
3" before you a brief of all the preeedents
and authorities on this subject, (of |
&C remedy by impeachment for which |
i" am indebted to the exhaustive and |
(" learned labors of the Hon. William |
" Lawrence, of Ohio, member of the Ju-
" dietary Committee of the House, etc. in |
" aChich l fully concur, and Which 1 adopt" |
From the "brief' thus "adopted" and |
"concurred in" by Manager Butler, we
will proceed to quote:
In England, impeachment may, to some
extent, be regarded as mode of trial de-
signed, inter ala, to punish crime, though
not entirely so, since Il judgment on an i'm
np1phmpnt iS iulicfm
in the Kings bench. Here iDapeGchnlsnt is
only designed to rem0ce uRHt persons from Of
fee; and the party convicted is subject to
indictment, trial, and punishment, i'll the
proper courts.
1t is aosurd to say that impeachment is
here a mode OF procedure for the punishment
Of crime, when the Constitution declares its
object to be TenlOUaE from and dtSqtdti ifcdtiOH
to hold oUice, and that ''Jhe party convicted
shall nevertheless be liable and subject to
indictment, trial, judgment, and punish
ment, according to law" for his 'crimcs-"
The trainers of our Constitution, looking
to the impeachment trials of England, and
to the writer's on parliamentary and COM
mon law, and to the constitutions and
usages of our own States, SAW that no act !
of Parliament or of any State Legislature,
ever undertook to define an impeachable
crime. They that the whole system OF
crimes, as defined in acts of Parliamen mt and
as recognized at common law. 1cdS prescribed
IDF ana UuO{ttU ~ tHC OfNtttJg NbUIHS- y
Hale, Pl. Crown, ch. 20, 2, l5U; Howell
81. Trials, 3l3, note.
They saw that the high court of impeach-
ment took Jurisdiction of cases where no
indictable crime had been committed, in
many instances, and there were then, "a
there yet are q two parallel modes of reach
ing some, but not all, offenders; one by i'm
peachment, the other by indictment.
With these landmarks to guide them, our
fathers adopted a Constitution alnder echich off
CidL 0lGbe0SGEce and n0ld edsdHce d'ad an some
cases, nljsfedSdnce. may be the subject Of TN
pedcltmeat, although not nude criminal 6g act
oJ Congress, or 80 recognized 5y the common
law OF England or OF any state OF the Tn
ion. They adopted Impeachment as means
Of relaoUiHJ men from office trt0Se misconduct
{laperils the public safety and renders them IN
III 10 occupy oficiai position.
All this is supported by the elementary
writers. both English and American, on
plrliam and common law; by the
ngiish and American usage in cases OF inn
reachment; by the opinions of the trainers 1
of the Constitution; by temporaneous |
all uHcontradicted BY any au-
thor, authority, case. or jurist, for more
than three quarters Of a century after the
adoption OF the Constitution.
WooddSon. whose lectures were read at
Oxford in I777, declared that i311edctmeHtS
extended to cases OF t1lich the ordinary courts {
had no Jurisdiction. He says: Magistrates
and officers MAY abuse their dele
O atcd powers to the extensive detrime ent OF
the community, aud at the same tine IN
manner not properly cognf~Rbte before he or
fiH6rg frfb1tnaIS,'' Aud he proceeds to say,
the remedy is By impeachment
1t takes no great reasoning power to
discern that the principles here asserted
and the rule laid down for the employ
ment of the remedy of impeachment,
apply with overwhelming force to the
case of Gov. Adelbert Ames. Our
fathers" says this high Republican au-
thority, "adopted impeachment as
means of removing men from cfice,
,oltose misconduct imperiIs the public safety,
and renders them unit to occupy official po-
sition." If Gov. Ames' misconduct
has not demonstrated his unftness for
ssofficial position his tampering with
the iudiciarv-his melting riot and MUIR
der-his organizing standing army
under the lead of pretended officers not
confirmed by the Senate, and, therefore,
not authorized to act in that capacity,
and his subordination of the civil TO the
military authority-his divers violations
of the Constitution in its requirements,
which are so plain that wayfaring man,
though fool, could not err therein-his
scandalous ISLANDERS upon the State and
people he claims to represent, and his
IawIess endeavors, by means of race
war. to embroil them in difficulties with