Alexander Heffner: What Could Have Been of Impeachment
[Alexander Heffner is a junior concentrating in history at Harvard.]
Early American Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase presents us with something of an infamous story in the nation’s early history.
Chase, a staunch anti-constitutionalist turned fiery Federalist partisan and John Adams loyalist, is the only justice to be impeached in more than two hundred yesars of Supreme Court jurisprudence.
Campaigning for Adams’s re-election, strictly applying the Alien and Sedition Acts against authors of “libelous” anti-Federalist material, and later boldly criticizing Jefferson’s presidency as essentially compromising domestic tranquility, he made himself a truly exceptional target for Jefferson and his Republican colleagues.
Chase’s ultimate acquittal set important precedent for protecting the integrity of constitutional law and the independence of the judiciary from partisan squabbles and the political ebbs and flows of the nascent nation.
While what to consider truly “impeachable crimes” remained unclear to most politicians in the early republic—a subject with which Americans still grapple today—using impeachment as an instrument of political opportunism seemed easy and tolerable for Jefferson. For Chase’s impeachment was the ultimate partisan Jefferson-approved Congressional attack on the ultimate partisan hack on the High Court.
The late famous anti-Chase historian Rauol Berger sets out to prove that Chase “flagrantly betrayed” standards of judicial conduct in his work. But he overlooks that in 1805 law and politics were completely intermingled; Chase was not violating accepted or as yet practiced notions of judicial conduct.
For the alleged "misconduct” were merely judicial decisions whose political consequence did not favor the Jeffersonian cause. The argument for impeachment mostly relied, in spirit, on what the Justice's own friends as well as later historians accept: Chase had an aggressive style and was not precisely the profile in judicial equanimity.
"Essentially a bully, Chase loved nothing better than insulting witnesses and lawyers with sarcasm, knowing they dare not reply in kind,” early American historian Claude Bowers wrote.
This doesn’t sound markedly different from conservatives’ attacks against Justice Sotomayor during her confirmation battle. Judges today still rudely interrupt counselors during oral argument, mock or challenge the intellectual veracity (or lack thereof) in their presentations, and generally can appear distasteful, bitter, and mean-spirited. None of this proves or even merits contemplation of impeachment in 2009; nor should it have in 1805.
Perhaps the most compelling evidence that the Chase impeachment was entirely political and legally unjustified—a move, if victorious, that might have forever compromised the legitimacy of the judicial branch—is the reaction of Chief Justice Marshall. Most legal historians consider Marshall the iconic representation of blind, impartial due process—perhaps even the father of judicial integrity.
Marshall’s distress is captured in a letter to his brother in which he wrote that the articles of impeachment against Chase were “sufficient to alarm the friends of pure, and, of course, an independent Judiciary, if, among those who rule our land there be any of that description."
Chase viewed his Federalist views as essential to safeguarding the young republic. Similarly, Jefferson’s hardball politics, in pursuit of his vision of America, motivated him to pursue Chase’s impeachment from the High Court.
But who could blame these early American forefathers for preferring the contentious political voice—and not separating it from the law? This strong rhetoric was the basis—in good measure—for the nation’s collective moral backbone and had fueled inspiration for the Declaration of Independence.
In the early 1800s, when the fledgling nation’s status and future sometimes remained in question, Jefferson and Chase, patriots alike, first wanted to protect their country through fidelity to their political code — what they viewed as the be-all and end-all of America’s survival. A secondary concern was their adherence to the law.
Early American Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase presents us with something of an infamous story in the nation’s early history.
Chase, a staunch anti-constitutionalist turned fiery Federalist partisan and John Adams loyalist, is the only justice to be impeached in more than two hundred yesars of Supreme Court jurisprudence.
Campaigning for Adams’s re-election, strictly applying the Alien and Sedition Acts against authors of “libelous” anti-Federalist material, and later boldly criticizing Jefferson’s presidency as essentially compromising domestic tranquility, he made himself a truly exceptional target for Jefferson and his Republican colleagues.
Chase’s ultimate acquittal set important precedent for protecting the integrity of constitutional law and the independence of the judiciary from partisan squabbles and the political ebbs and flows of the nascent nation.
While what to consider truly “impeachable crimes” remained unclear to most politicians in the early republic—a subject with which Americans still grapple today—using impeachment as an instrument of political opportunism seemed easy and tolerable for Jefferson. For Chase’s impeachment was the ultimate partisan Jefferson-approved Congressional attack on the ultimate partisan hack on the High Court.
The late famous anti-Chase historian Rauol Berger sets out to prove that Chase “flagrantly betrayed” standards of judicial conduct in his work. But he overlooks that in 1805 law and politics were completely intermingled; Chase was not violating accepted or as yet practiced notions of judicial conduct.
For the alleged "misconduct” were merely judicial decisions whose political consequence did not favor the Jeffersonian cause. The argument for impeachment mostly relied, in spirit, on what the Justice's own friends as well as later historians accept: Chase had an aggressive style and was not precisely the profile in judicial equanimity.
"Essentially a bully, Chase loved nothing better than insulting witnesses and lawyers with sarcasm, knowing they dare not reply in kind,” early American historian Claude Bowers wrote.
This doesn’t sound markedly different from conservatives’ attacks against Justice Sotomayor during her confirmation battle. Judges today still rudely interrupt counselors during oral argument, mock or challenge the intellectual veracity (or lack thereof) in their presentations, and generally can appear distasteful, bitter, and mean-spirited. None of this proves or even merits contemplation of impeachment in 2009; nor should it have in 1805.
Perhaps the most compelling evidence that the Chase impeachment was entirely political and legally unjustified—a move, if victorious, that might have forever compromised the legitimacy of the judicial branch—is the reaction of Chief Justice Marshall. Most legal historians consider Marshall the iconic representation of blind, impartial due process—perhaps even the father of judicial integrity.
Marshall’s distress is captured in a letter to his brother in which he wrote that the articles of impeachment against Chase were “sufficient to alarm the friends of pure, and, of course, an independent Judiciary, if, among those who rule our land there be any of that description."
Chase viewed his Federalist views as essential to safeguarding the young republic. Similarly, Jefferson’s hardball politics, in pursuit of his vision of America, motivated him to pursue Chase’s impeachment from the High Court.
But who could blame these early American forefathers for preferring the contentious political voice—and not separating it from the law? This strong rhetoric was the basis—in good measure—for the nation’s collective moral backbone and had fueled inspiration for the Declaration of Independence.
In the early 1800s, when the fledgling nation’s status and future sometimes remained in question, Jefferson and Chase, patriots alike, first wanted to protect their country through fidelity to their political code — what they viewed as the be-all and end-all of America’s survival. A secondary concern was their adherence to the law.