Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-06-26

AS per adjournment of Saturday last, the
Senate sitting as court Of impeachment for
the trial Of Judge Sherman Page, met at $50
o'clock yesterday morning. 1t being
understood that Ex-Gov. G. K. Davis was to
commence his summing up argument for the
defense, nearly every Senator promptly in
his seat The lobby and aisles of the chamber
and the gallery also crowded with specta-
tors, among whom were large number of ex-
cursionists from Austin and Mower countless
made up Of both friends of the prosecution
and Defense the ladies of the party occupying
seats along each side of the chamber, the par
tisans upon opposite sides. In addition to
these and the usual attendants, were a large
number of members of the legal profession
from this city, Minneapolis, and other portions
of the State, mostly all Of whom sat through
both the forenoon and afternoon sessions,
and following the speaker intently from begin
ming to end. Of the legal fraternity thus in
attendance were Judges Cornell and Berry, of
the supreme court, Attorney General Wilson,
Judge Wilkin, of the Ramsey county district
court, Hon. G. NJ. Berry and Major o. B. Could
Winona, Hon. J. V. Brewer and D. b. Searlcs
not now recall.
Mr.. Davis commenced his argument by say
ing he was quite sure one would accuse him
Of affectation when he entered upon considera-
ton of this case, with great distrust of his
ability to do the matter Justice. In ordinary
trial cases an advocate felt that he stood upon
ground surrounded by we'll established prece-
dent and that he was addressing minds trained
tc the judicial analyzation of the facts pre-
sented and the law governing them. This body
is differently composed-is a part of the legis-
lative arm Of the government, and is, to GER
tain extent, a law unto itself.
The articles Of impeachment presented
against the respondent have now, he said, have
been fully heard upon the proof. All the facts
now live in history. Friend and foe now stand
together upon the same plane, awaiting the de-
clslon of the Senate upon the facts as they have
been presented governed by the the principles
of law applicable to the case. In the proceed
ings to this point the advocates have been JUS
titled in taking advantage of the liberties &C
corded to forensic efforts in misleading and be-
Jogging the minds of Senators. But in sum-
ming up this case it would be his aim to deal
fairly with the testimony and to state the law
correctly in it's application to such facts, and
if he should fall into error in doing this he
would De thankful Tor having his errar pointed
out
1t is serious thing to be charged with a
crime, no matter how trivial In the prosecu-
ton of offences there are certain rights be-
longing to the accused which the law does not
give him, and which the law cannot take away.
The law declares that a man shall be consider
ed innocent until proven guilty. But in this
case, respondent is told by the managers he is
to be tried for crimes not defined in the stat
utes-for habits Of taste, manner of speech
upon accusations which do not accuse and
which are not recognized by any judicial tri-
bunal Of the land. However important this
trial may be to respondent, it reaches far be-
yond and above him in its effects-in the pre-
cedent it establishes.
On this point MIR. Davis said he did not
speak for the respondent alone, but for the iu-
dicial Office, upon which profaning hands had
been Sc 50 rudely laid. The occupant of the judi
cial office becomes legal monk. If he is assailed
in his motives, he must bear it meezly, and
it he mixes in the ordinary temporal affairs of
this ife he is charged with prostituting his
office for the qualification of his malice, or for
faVoritism. The Judiciary is the embodied
conscience Of society. The executive may 20
astray the private citizen may violate the
law, the embodied conscience of society as rep
resented in the judiciary, is then brought to
right the wrong% Disturb that embodied con-
science and chaos follows. But a short time
ago when the country was in a blaze Of excite
ment, over the result of a Presidential election
where fraud was charged upon both the
great parties, and revolution with all it's bloody
horrors was imminent, a judicial body was or
ganized to declare the result of that election
and at once order and confidence restored.
Such being the purpose and the power of Or
binary courts, how much more important the
duty, how much greater the obligation devolv-
ing upon bodies of this character. From your
decision there is no appeal. 1t is final, and if
adverse the door Of civil honors is forever
closed against the accused Hence the neces-
sity-hence the obligation in the oath admin
prejudioes and all partisan feelings, should be
laid aside, and that in reaching decision it
should be predicated solely upon the law and
the facts.
Mr.. Davis then took up and considered what
constituted impeachable offenses under the
constitution of the State. Our constitution, he
said, differed from the federal constit ution. in
the direction of limitations upon the powers of
courts of impeachment, the necessity having
passed for comforting those extraordinary
powers, and still claimed by the managers to be
inherent to and possessed Of courts of impeach-
ment' Under our constitution, the words
crimes, misdemeanors and corrupt conduct in
Office contemplates indictable offenses.
contrary construction was brought down from
a diseased past, but it was rapidly passing
away under the intelligence and Christianizing
influences of the nineteenth century. A revi-
val of this relic of barbarism was tried in
the impeachment of President johnson. and
though he might run counter to the slumbering
sense some of the Senators, he would venture
the assertion that when this genera
ton shall have passed away, and the
proceedings Of that trial shall come
to be read by our children, they will be set
down as the most fagrantly unjust and unau-
thorized in the Legislative history of the co~n-
try. Not that he may not have gone astray.
That was matter Of easy proof, proof found
IN almost every newspaper in the land-but
that he should have been placed on trial for
ottenses unknown to any statute work. The
managers have seen fit to refer to the proceed
lngs IN this trial as furnishing precedent for
this body. But it was not what was DONE but
what was not done in this case that is most in
instructive. There were eleven articles pre-
sented in the case. Ten of those articles
alleged violation of law, but the
famous eleventh. cited especially by
of decorum in his attacks upon Congress dur
ing his frenzied swinging around the circle'
Articles two, three and ten were voted upon by
the United States Senate, but the famous
eleventh, after every allegation made in it had
been proved, and after most able argument in
ing dign1fed by taking a vote upon it.
There were, Mr.. Davis said, grave historic
reasons for the construction he gave to the law
governing courts of impeachment. In the old
en- days when liberty Of conscience and action
was struggling up the mists of ignorance and
prejudice, bills of attainder and e,zpost
tacto laws went hand in hand with
impeachment proceedings, and when
the latter failed to do the work
of rabid craftsmanship and malignant hate, then
the former were called into play. As examples
of this, Mr.. Davis cited, among others, the
case of Bishop Atterbury, pillar Of the church
and state, accused, not provably, of improper
relations with the pretender. He was i'm
peached, but fearing the result of the trial.
bill of attaint was invoked, and he went to a
foreign land to die among strangers. Lord
MelQille ira,aeac had hut tho