Had Martin shown that Chase was right in requiring questions to be reduced to writing? "Here again," declared Randolph, "I bottom myself upon the testimony of the same great man, yet more illustrious for his abilities than for the high station that he fills, eminent as it is." And he recited the substance of Marshall's testimony on this point. Consider his description of the bearing of Chase toward counsel! "I again ask you, what said the Chief Justice?... And what did he look?[572] He felt all the delicacy of his situation, and, as he could not approve, he declined giving any opinion on the demeanor of his associate."[573] In such manner Randolph extolled Marshall.
Again he apostrophized the Chief Justice. If Fries and Callender "had had fair trials, our lips would have been closed in eternal silence. Look at the case of Logwood: The able and excellent judge whose worth was never fully known until he was raised to the bench ... uttered not one syllable that could prejudice the defense of the prisoner." Once more he contrasted the judicial manners and rulings of Marshall with those of Chase: "The Chief Justice knew that, sooner or later, the law was an over-match for the dishonest, and ... he disdained to descend from his great elevation to the low level of a public prosecutor."
The sick man spoke for two hours and a half, his face often distorted and his body writhing with pain. Finally his tense nerves gave way. Only public duty had kept him to his task, he said. "In a little time and I will dismiss you to the suggestions of your own consciences. My weakness and want of ability prevent me from urging my cause as I could wish, but"—here the overwrought and exhausted man broke into tears—"it is the last day of my sufferings and of yours."
Mastering his indisposition, however, Randolph closed in a passage of genuine power: "We adjure you, on behalf of the House of Representatives and of all the people of the United States, to exorcise from our Courts the baleful spirit of party, to give an awful memento to our judges. In the name of the nation, I demand at your hands the award of justice and of law."[574]
So ended this unequal forensic contest in one of the most fateful trials in American history. The whole country eagerly awaited tidings of the judgment to be rendered by the Senatorial tribunal. The fate of the Supreme Court, the character of the National Judiciary, the career of John Marshall, depended upon it. Even union or disunion was involved; for if Chase should be convicted, another and perhaps final impulse would be given to the secessionist movement in New England, which had been growing since the Republican attack on the National Judiciary in 1802.[575]
When the Senate convened at half-past twelve on March 1, 1805, a dense mass of auditors filled every inch of space in the Senate Chamber.[576] Down the narrow passageway men were seen bearing a couch on which lay Senator Uriah Tracy of Connecticut, pale and sunken from sickness. Feebly he rose and took one of the red-covered seats of the Senatorial judges.[577]
"The Sergeants-at-Arms will face the spectators and seize and commit to prison the first person who makes the smallest noise or disturbance," sternly ordered Aaron Burr.
"The secretary will read the first article of impeachment," he directed.
"Senator Adams of Massachusetts! How say you? Is Samuel Chase, the respondent, guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors as charged in the article just read?"
"Not guilty!" responded John Quincy Adams.