“The reason of this clause has been already adverted to. It was to preclude the Vice-President, who might be supposed to have a natural desire to succeed to the office, from being instrumental in procuring the conviction of the Chief Magistrate.”[91]
And he cites in his note “Rawle on the Constitution, ch. 22, p. 216,”[92] being the very passage that I have just read. Here is the first appearance of this reason, which is now made to play so important a part, being treated even as a text of the Constitution itself. At least I have not been able to meet it at an earlier day.
If you repair to the contemporary authorities, including the original debates, you will find no such reason assigned,—nothing like it,—not even any suggestion of it. On the contrary, you will find Mr. Madison, in the Virginia Convention, making a statement which explains in the most satisfactory manner the requirement of the Constitution.[93] No better authority could be cited. Any reason supplied by him anterior to the adoption of the Constitution must be of more weight than any ex post facto imagination or invention of learned commentators.
If we trust to the lights of history, the reason for the introduction of this clause in the Constitution was because the framers of the Constitution contemplated the possibility of the suspension of the President from the exercise of his powers, in which event the Vice-President could not be in your chair, Sir. If the President were suspended, the Vice-President would be in his place. The reports will verify what I say. If you refer to the debates of the National Convention, under the date of Friday, September 14, 1787, you will find the following entry, which I read now by way of introduction to what follows at a later date, on the authority of Mr. Madison himself.
“Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Gouverneur Morris moved ‘that persons impeached be suspended from their offices until they be tried and acquitted.’
“Mr. Madison. The President is made too dependent already on the Legislature by the power of one branch to try him in consequence of an impeachment by the other. This intermediate suspension will put him in the power of one branch only. They can at any moment, in order to make way for the functions of another who will be more favorable to their views, vote a temporary removal of the existing magistrate.
“Mr. King concurred in the opposition to the amendment.”[94]
The proposition was rejected by the decisive vote of eight States in the negative to three in the affirmative. We all see, in reading it now, that it was rejected on good grounds. It would obviously be improper to confer upon the other branch of Congress the power, by its own vote, to bring about a suspension of the Chief Magistrate. But it did not follow, because the Convention rejected the proposition that a suspension could take place on a simple vote of the House of Representatives, that therefore the President could not be suspended. When the Senate was declared to have the sole power to try impeachments, it was by necessary implication invested with the power, incident to every court, and known historically to belong to the English court of impeachment, from which ours was borrowed, of suspending the party accused. All this was apparent at the time, if possible, more clearly than now. It was so clear, that it furnishes an all-sufficient reason for the provision that the Chief Justice should preside on the trial of the President, without resorting to the later reason which has been put forward in this debate.
But we are not driven to speculate on this question. While the Constitution was under discussion in the Virginia Convention, George Mason objected to some of the powers conferred upon the President, especially the pardoning power. This was on June 18, 1788, and will be found under that date in the reports of the Virginia Convention. This earnest opponent of the Constitution said that the President might “pardon crimes which were advised by himself,” and thus further his own ambitious schemes. This brought forward Mr. Madison, who had sat, as we all know, throughout the debates of the National Convention, and had recorded its proceedings, and who, of all persons, was the most competent to testify at that time as to the intention of the framers. What said this eminent authority? I give you his words:—
“There is one security in this case to which gentlemen may not have adverted. If the President be connected in any suspicious manner with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they”—