rdinate
departments of the Government, it has assailed my whole official conduct
without the shadow of a pretext for such assault, and, stopping short
of impeachment, has charged me, nevertheless, with offenses declared
to deserve impeachment.

Had the extraordinary report which the committee thus made to the
House been permitted to remain without the sanction of the latter,
I should not have uttered a regret or complaint upon the subject.
But unaccompanied as it is by any particle of testimony to support the
charges it contains, without a deliberate examination, almost without
any discussion, the House of Representatives has been pleased to adopt
it as its own, and thereby to become my accuser before the country and
before the world. The high character of such an accuser, the gravity of
the charges which have been made, and the judgment pronounced against me
by the adoption of the report upon a distinct and separate vote of the
House leave me no alternative but to enter my solemn protest against
this proceeding as unjust to myself as a man, as an invasion of my
constitutional powers as Chief Magistrate of the American people, and as
a violation in my person of rights secured to every citizen by the laws
and the Constitution. That Constitution has intrusted to the House
of Representatives the sole power of impeachment. Such impeachment
is required to be tried before the most august tribunal known to
our institutions. The Senate of the United States, composed of the
representatives of the sovereignty of the States, is converted into a
hall of justice, and in order to insure the strictest observance of the
rules of evidence and of legal procedure the Chief Justice of the United
States, the highest judicial functionary of the land, is required to
preside over its deliberations. In the presence of such a judicatory the
voice of faction is presumed to be silent, and the sentence of guilt or
innocence is pronounced under the most solemn sanctions of religion, of
honor, and of law. To such a tribunal does the Constitution authorize
the House of Representatives to carry up its accusations against any
chief of the executive department whom it may believe to be guilty of
high crimes and misdemeanors. Before that tribunal the accused is
confronted with his accusers, and may demand the privilege, which the
justice of the common law secures to the humblest citizen, of a full,
patient, and impartial inquiry into the facts, upon the t