The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1913-01-12

ment by the United States marshal.
He refused to hear testimony on be-
half of the United States and further
refused to grant an appeal from his
decision to the circuit court. In adj
dition to his he was charged with
being drunk While on the bench. The
fourth and last article of impeach-
nlent set forth that he being a man
of loose morals and Incorporate
habits" appeared on the bench in a
state of total intoxication. and fire.
quently in a most profane and inde-
cent invoked the name of the
Supreme Being, to the evil example
of all good citizens.
Pickering never answered the sum
mons to appear before the bar of the
senate. His son appeared and repre-
sented that his father was insane.
The senate heard the evidence in the
case. and the jurist was removed from
office. His was the only case but one
in the history of American impeach-
ments where judgment practically was
confessed by the %impeached official.
The next Impeachment trial was
against Samuel Chase, an associate
justice of the supreme court of the
United States, and it stands as the
only time when u justice of that court
has had the breath of suspicion so
strongly against him. Chase was
charged with prejudicing the cases
of the defendants in the trials of John
Fries for treason and Thompson Cal.
lender for sedition. He was charged
with trying to invade the sacred pre-
cincts of the grand jury room for the.
purpose of inducing a Delaware feds
eral grand jury to return ar indict>
ment against a newspaper editor for
violation of the sedition laws. He
was also charged with delivering an
incorporate, inflammatory, and sedi,
tlouS ~.harangue to q jury from the
bench in Maryland. Party feeling was
running high in the United States
about that time, and by a strict party
vote he was declared not guilty of the
several o%ffenses charged against him.
1t was generally agreed thai Justice
Chase had been indiscreet in many
ways in his ~partisanship. but the Yer.
dict seemed to accord with the gen,
eral trend of public opinion. The
Pickering and Chase Impeachment,
lIidlS OCCURRED III succeeding years,
the former in 1909 and the latter in
1904. 1t is the only tive ir. the his.
tory of American federal impeach.
ments that they have come SO close
together,
1t was a quarter of a century before
another official was hailed before the
senate sitting as a court of impeach,
ment. This time it was a distric,
judge, James H. Peck, who was
charged with high crimes and mis-
demeanors." In 1880 the house i'm.
peached him for grossly abusing his
power as a judge by casting an at
torney into prison for "a hours and
suspending him from the bar of his
court for Is months for writing and
publishing a moderate criticism of one
of the judges decisions, the case at
issue being one in which the debarred
attorney was interested. The suspen-
sion prevented his further participa.
ton in the suit. The senate heard
the evidence and then declared tina,
the judge was justified in assuming
that he was clothed with the legal
power he exercised, and also held that
there was no evidence that Peck's
sentence of imprisonment and suspen-
sion had been the result of malice.
There was but a single article in the