spectacular
character from the personalities involved.

The managers of the impeachment were far from consistent in their
conception of the nature of impeachable offenses. Randolph, Campbell,
and Giles held that an impeachment was "a kind of inquest into the
conduct of an officer merely as it regards his office," rather than a
criminal prosecution. A judge, in short, might be removed for a mistake
in the administration of the law. Nicholson rejected this theory,
contending that impeachment was essentially a criminal prosecution which
aimed at not only the removal but also the punishment of the offender.
Yet the managers had not specified any offense which could be called a
"high crime" or "misdemeanor" within the meaning of the Constitution.
The counsel for Justice Chase, on the other hand, held consistently to
the position that a judge might not be impeached or removed from office
for anything short of an indictable offense, an offense indictable under
the known law of the land.

From the first, the legal counsel for the accused were more than a
match for the managers. Randolph's erratic course culminated in an
impassioned but incoherent speech which closed the argument for the
prosecution and left the outcome hardly in doubt. Not one of the
articles of impeachment received the two-thirds majority which was
necessary to convict. The eighth article, which touched upon the real
provocation for the trial,--the harangue at Baltimore,--received the
highest vote; but nearly one fourth of the Republican Senators refused
to sustain the managers. The acquittal of Chase was, therefore, a
judgment against Randolph. He never recovered his lost prestige as the
leader of his party in the House. Jefferson could accept Randolph's
downfall with equanimity, but not the failure of the impeachment. Years
afterward he wrote, bitterly that impeachment was "an impracticable
thing, a mere scarecrow." From this time on, said he, the judges held
office without any sense of responsibility, led "by a crafty chief-judge
who sophisticates the law to his mind by the turn of his own reasoning."

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Although the general histories contain much that is important for
an understanding of the administrations of Jefferson, the
authority _par excellence_ is Henry Adams, _History of the United
States of America_ (9 vols., 1889-91). Chapters I-VI of the first
volume contain an excellent description of Ame