Chase condemned "the modern doctrines by our late reformers, that all men, in a state of society, are entitled to enjoy equal liberty and equal rights, [which] have brought this mighty mischief upon us";—a mischief which he feared "will rapidly progress, until peace and order, freedom and property, shall be destroyed.... Will justice be impartially administered by judges dependent on the legislature for their ... suport? Will liberty or property be protected or secured, by laws made by representatives chosen by electors, who have no property in, or a common interest with, or attachment to, the community?"[467]
Burning with anger, a young Republican member of the Maryland Legislature, John Montgomery, who had listened to this judicial tirade, forthwith savagely denounced Chase in the Baltimore American.[468] He demanded that the Justice be impeached and removed from the bench.[469] Montgomery hastened to send to the President[470] a copy of the paper.
Jefferson promptly wrote Nicholson: "Ought this seditious and official attack on the principles of our Constitution, and on the proceedings of a State, go unpunished? And, to whom so pointedly as yourself will the public look for the necessary measures?"
But Jefferson was not willing to appear openly. With that uncanny power of divining political currents to which coarser or simpler minds were oblivious, he was conscious of the uneasiness of Northern Republicans over ruthless impeachment and decided not to become personally responsible. "For myself," he cautioned Nicholson, "it is better that I should not interfere."[471]
Upon the advice of Nathaniel Macon,[472] Republican Speaker of the House, Nicholson concluded that it would be more prudent for another to take the lead. It was well understood that he was to have Chase's place on the Supreme Bench,[473] and this fact would put him at a disadvantage if he became the central figure in the fight against the aged Justice. The procurement of the impeachment was, therefore, placed in the eager hands of John Randolph, that "unusual Phenomenon," as John Adams called him,[474] whose lust for conspicuous leadership was insatiable.
The Republican managers had carefully moulded public opinion into the belief that Chase was guilty of some monstrous crime. Months before articles of impeachment were presented to the House, ex parte statements against him were collected, published in pamphlet form, and scattered throughout the country. To assure wider publicity all this "evidence" was printed in the Republican organ at Washington. The accused Justice had, therefore, been tried and convicted by the people before the charges against him were even offered in the House.[475]
This preparation of the popular mind accomplished, Chase was finally impeached. Eight articles setting forth the Republican accusations were laid before the Senate. Chase was accused of everything of which anybody had complained since his appointment to the Supreme Bench. His conduct at the trials of Fries and Callender was set forth with tedious particularity: in Delaware he had stooped "to the level of an informer"; his charge to the grand jury at Baltimore was an "intemperate and inflamatory political harangue"; he had prostituted his "high judicial character ... to the low purpose of an electioneering partizan"; his purpose was "to excite ... odium ... against the government."[476]
This curious scramble of fault-finding, which was to turn out so fatally for the prosecution, was the work of Randolph. When the conglomerate indictment was drawn, no one, except perhaps Jefferson, had the faintest idea that the Republican plan would miscarry; Randolph's multifarious charges pleased those in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland who had first made them; they were so drawn as to lay a foundation for the assault which was to follow immediately. "These articles," wrote John Quincy Adams, "contained in themselves a virtual impeachment not only of Mr. Chase, but of all the Judges of the Supreme Court from the first establishment of the national judiciary."[477]
In an extended and carefully prepared speech, Senator Giles, who had drawn the rules governing the conduct of the trial in the Senate, announced the Republican view of impeachment which, he said, "is nothing more than an enquiry, by the two Houses of Congress, whether the office of any public man might not be better filled by another." Adams was convinced that "this is undoubtedly the source and object of Mr. Chase's impeachment, and on the same principle any officer may easily be removed at any time."[478]
From the time the House took action against Chase, the Federalists were in despair. "I think the Judge will be removed from Office," was Senator Plumer's opinion.[479] "The event of the impeachment is already determined," wrote Bayard before the trial began.[480] Pickering was certain that Chase would be condemned—so would any man that the House might impeach; such "measures ... are made questions of party, and therefore at all events to be carried into effect according to the wishes of the prime mover [Jefferson]."[481]