Impeachment of Samuel Chase
, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was impeached by the United States House of Representatives on March 12, 1804, on eight articles of impeachment alleging misconduct. His impeachment trial before the United States Senate delivered an acquittal on March 1, 1805, with none of the eight articles receiving the two-thirds majority needed for a conviction.
The impeachment was a partisan affair. It was an effort by the Thomas Jefferson-led Democratic–Republican Party to weaken a judiciary that had been largely shaped by the opposing Federalist Party. The outcomes helped to solidify norms of an independent judiciary and impeachments requiring more than just a disagreement between an official and the Congress. Chase remains the only United States Supreme Court justice to have been impeached.
Background
The impeachment of Samuel Chase, an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, was politically motivated. A high-profile affair at the time, the impeachment pitted the two major United States political parties of the era against each other amid a battle between the parties over, among other things, what the role of Federal courts should look like. The era preceding the impeachment had seen heated political battle between the Federalists, led by John Adams, and the Democratic–Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson. The Supreme Court of the United States was regarded at the time to be strongly partisan to the Federalist Party. The impeachment was in large part a reaction to this lean of the Supreme Court. Associate Justice Chase was viewed to be the most partisan justice on the Supreme Court. He was a strong Federalist and publicly made known his opposition to President Thomas Jefferson. He had campaigned for Federalist incumbent John Adams during the 1800 presidential election.The impeachment was also, in part, a reaction to the increase in the power of the Supreme Court in the previous years under Chief Justice John Marshall, including the landmark Marbury v. Madison decision. Democratic–Republicans saw the judiciary, and especially the Supreme Court, as an obstacle to their consolidation of power in government. When Jefferson took office, all six Supreme Court justices were Federalists, and by 1804, Jefferson had only gotten the chance to make a single appointment to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. President Jefferson, alarmed at the seizure of power by the judiciary through their claim of exclusive judicial review in Marbury v. Madison, led his party's efforts to remove the Federalists from the bench. When Thomas Jefferson took office as president in 1801, after defeating Federalist incumbent president John Adams in the 1800 presidential election, he became impatient with the independence of the judiciary. He believed that Congress or the executive should have more sway over federal judges, and believed that their appointment and removal should be more routine along the lines of other appointed public officers. The 1800 United States elections had not only seen Jefferson unseat Adams, but had also seen the Democratic–Republicans capture control of both chambers of the United States Congress in what Jefferson referred to as the "Revolution of 1800". The party had won a sizable enough number of seats in the chambers of the legislature to make the party hypothetically capable of impeaching and removing a federal official with only the votes of its own members.
Jefferson's allies in Congress had, shortly after his inauguration, repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801, abolishing the lower courts created by the legislation and terminating their Federalist judges despite lifetime appointments. In May 1803, two years after this repeal, Chase denounced it in his charge to a Baltimore grand jury, saying that it would "take away all security for property and personal liberty, and our Republican constitution will sink into a mobocracy." This would play a role in the impeachment charges, along with several events from 1800. The first event from 1800 was that Chase, in April 1800 while acting as a district judge, made strong attacks upon Thomas Cooper, who had been indicted under the Alien and Sedition Acts; Chase had taken the tack of a prosecutor rather than a judge. This conduct angered Democratic–Republicans. His conduct soon after in the trial of John Fries further angered Democratic–Republicans. Even more angering was his conduct in the May 1800 trial of James T. Callender. Later in 1800, when a grand jury in New Castle, Delaware declined to indict a local printer, Chase refused to discharge them, saying he was aware of one specific printer whom he wished them to indict for seditious behavior. Jefferson saw the attack as indubitable bad behavior and an opportunity to reduce the Federalist influence on the judiciary by impeaching Chase, helping prompt the House's consideration of impeaching Chase two weeks later when he wrote to Congressman Joseph Hopper Nicholson of Maryland, asking: "Ought the seditious and official attack on the principles of our Constitution...to go unpunished?"
In 1803, Federal District Judge John Pickering, whose mental state had declined, was impeached and removed on charges of habitual drunkenness. Pickering was only the second official to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives, and was the first official to be thereafter removed after a trial by the United States Senate. This successful removal of a judge from office through impeachment emboldened many in Congress to use the tool of impeachment as a means of pushing the Supreme Court towards subservience. Similarly encouraging was the removal of Pennsylvania judge Alexander Addison through an impeachment by that state's legislature. The resolution that officially impeached Chase was adopted by the House of Representatives only an hour after Pickering was convicted in his impeachment trial on March 12, 1804. Democratic–Republicans took a broad view of what impeachment could be used for. They effectively believed that the Congress could use impeachment to remove judges whose opinions were disfavored by more than one-third of senators, viewing this as a means of keeping judges in line with the sentiments of "the people".
Inquiry prior to the impeachment
Vote to launch inquiry
An impeachment inquiry into Chase was precipitated by CongressmanJohn Randolph of Roanoke, a staunch partisan of the Democratic–Republicans. On January 5, 1804, Randolph introduced a resolution to appoint a special committee "to inquire into the official conduct of Samuel Chase, one of the associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States". Randolph wanted formal inquiry to be made into a report that Democratic–Republican John Smilie had made in the previous session of congress which had questioned Chase's conduct in the Fries trial.
Federalist James Elliott raised objection. Arguing that a vote for inquiry would be a "prima facie censure", Elliott argued that there was an absence of evidence of any "flagrant misconduct" and that the House could not censure a judge for merely questionable conduct. However, Democratic–Republicans such as Smilie and Matthew Clay argued that an inquiry was necessary for the very purpose of enabling the House to find facts to inform how it would proceed. Clay argued that examining judicial conduct was important, arguing that "judicial independence" if unscrutinized could "become dangerous to the liberties of our country." During debate, Federalist Roger Griswold laid-out a preemptive defense for Chase, arguing that even if he may have erred in his interpretation of a matter of law during the Fries trial, it would not be a grounds for impeachment since it would be an error in judgment and not an act of malice. Throughout the debate, House members such as Clay and Griswold denied holding any bias on the matter, despite their obvious partisan stances.
The following day, investigation of Judge Peters was added by amendment to the proposed resolution in a 79–37 vote of the House, adding the language, "..and of Richard Peters, the district judge of the district of Pennsylvania". Elliott attempted delay the resolution, but lacked the votes to do so. The amended resolution was adopted by the House on January 7, 1804, in an 81–40 vote.
Randolph's advancing of an impeachment process against Chase alarmed a number of Federalists who had already feared the potential politicalization of impeachment. Former congressman Fisher Ames perceived the effort to impeach Chase as an escalation of political conflict.
Early inquiry developments
The congressmen appointed to the special committee to run the inquiry were John Boyle, Joseph Clay, Peter Early, Roger Griswold, Benjamin Huger, Joseph Hopper Nicholson, John Randolph of Roanoke.| Members of the special committee | - |
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With Randolph usurping Nicholson to lead the impeachment effort, Jefferson became somewhat hesitant over whether he would continue to support it. He and Randolph had previously politically fought over their different positions on the Louisiana Purchase, and believed Randolph could potentially head a rival splintering of the Democratic–Republican party. Randolph attempted to keep respectful relations with the Jefferson's administration, but recognized that Jefferson did not hold positive regard for him. This tension lessened the degree of unified party support for the impeachment, and played some role in the extended delay between the launch of the inquiry and the adoption of articles of impeachment. During the inquiry, Randolph's health became seriously strained. He remained unceasing in his pursuit of impeachment to the detriment of his own health.
Randolph, despite having read law, had not frequently practiced as a lawyer and did not take a very legalistic approach to questioning and arguments during the inquiry. Instead of legal-based concerns, he argued common-sense based concerns, which played well among the membership of the House. Federalists sought to slow the inquiry by bringing up complex questions of procedure.