4. The Recall
One of the political problems with which we have been much concerned in late years has to do with the possibility of removing an elected official from office. We proceed to the accomplishment of that purpose in two ways, by the traditional method of impeachment or by the new device of the recall. They differ in the fact that the former is a judicial procedure, whereas a recall is brought about by the direct action of the voters. The Romans were a practical people and did not like to interfere with the orderly transaction of public business by removing an executive from office. Consequently we have no record of any attempt being made to remove a civil magistrate from office until we come to the stormy period of the second century before our era. In 169 B.C. one of the censors of that year was impeached and tried before the popular assembly, and in 133 B.C. the tribune Tiberius Gracchus secured the recall of his colleague Octavius by a popular vote. Both cases illustrate the application of the Roman doctrine of popular sovereignty in its extreme form. Neither method of procedure, however, found favor in later years. In fact the Romans did not have so much need of either process as we have today, because the tribune could veto an arbitrary or unscrupulous act of a magistrate.