The final arguments began on the 20th of February. The first speech in behalf of Chase was delivered by Joseph Hopkinson, a young Philadelphia attorney, whose effort stirred the admiration of Federalists and Republicans alike. He dwelt upon “the infinite importance” of the implications of this case for the future of the Republic, contrasted the frivolity of the charges brought against Chase with the magnitude of the crimes of which Warren Hastings had been accused, and pointed out that, whereas in England only two judges had been impeached in half a century, in America, “boasting of its superior purity and virtue,” seven judges had been prosecuted within two years. More loosely wrought, but not less effective was Martin’s address, the superb climax of a remarkable forensic career! The accusation against Chase he reduced to a charge of indecorum, and he was ready to admit that the manner of his friend “bore a stronger resemblance to that of Lord Thurlow than of Lord Chesterfield,” but, said he, our judges ought not to be “like the gods of Epicurus lolling upon their beds of down, equally careless whether the laws of their country are obeyed or violated, instead of actively discharging their duties.”
The closing argument, which fell to the managers, was assigned to Randolph. It was an unmitigated disaster for the cause in behalf of which it was pronounced. “I feel perfectly inadequate to the task of closing this important debate on account of a severe indisposition which I labor under,” were Randolph’s opening words, but even this prefatory apology gave little warning of the distressing exhibition of incompetence which was to follow. “On the reopening of the court,” records John Quincy Adams in his Memoirs, “he [Randolph] began a speech of about two hours and a half, with as little relation to the subject-matter as possible … without order, connection, or argument; consisting altogether of the most hackneyed commonplaces of popular declamation, mingled up with panegyrics and invectives upon persons, with a few well-expressed ideas, a few striking figures, much distortion of face and contortion of body, tears, groans and sobs, with occasional pauses for recollection, and continual complaints of having lost his notes.” So ended the ambition of John Randolph of Roanoke to prove himself another Burke!
But while their frontal assault on the reason of the court was thus breaking down, the impeachers, led by the President, were attempting a flank movement on its virtue. They especially distrusted the “steadiness” of certain New England and New York Senators and hoped to reach the hearts of these gentlemen through Aaron Burr, the Vice-President. Burr had heretofore found himself vested with the rôle of Lucifer in the Republican Paradise. Now he found himself suddenly basking in a perpetual sunburst of smiles both from the great central luminary, Jefferson, and his paler satellites, Madison and Gallatin. Invitations to the President’s dinners were soon followed by more substantial bribes. Burr’s step-son became judge of the Superior Court at New Orleans; his brother-in-law, secretary to the Louisiana Territory; his intimate friend Wilkinson, its military commandant. Then Giles, whose view of impeachment left him utterly shameless in the matter, drew up and circulated in the Senate itself a petition to the Governor of New Jersey asking him to quash the indictment for murder which the Bergen County grand jury had found against Burr as a result of the duel with Hamilton. At the same time, an act was passed giving the retiring Vice-President the franking privilege for life. In the debate Senator Wright of Maryland declared that dueling was justified by the example of David and Goliath and that the bill was opposed “only because our David had slain the Goliath of Federalism.”
Whether Burr made any attempt to render the expected quid pro quo for these favors does not appear, but at least if he did, his efforts were fruitless. The vote on the impeachment of Chase was taken on the 1st of March, and the impeachers were crushingly defeated. On the first article they could muster only sixteen votes out of thirty-four; on the second, only ten; on the fifth, none; on the sixth, four. Even on the last article, where they made their best showing, they were still four votes short of the required constitutional majority. When the result of the last ballot was announced, Randolph rushed from the Senate chamber to the House to introduce a resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution, requiring that judges of the United States “shall be removed by the President on joint address of both Houses of Congress.” At the same time Nicholson moved an amendment providing legislative recall for Senators. Thus exasperation was vented and no harm done.
Meanwhile word had come from Philadelphia that the impeachment of the State Supreme Court judges had also failed. Here, even more impressively than in the case of Chase, had been illustrated that solidarity of Bench and Bar which has ever since been such an influential factor in American government. The Pennsylvania judge-breakers, failing to induce a single reputable member of the Philadelphia bar to aid them, had been obliged to go to Delaware, whence they procured Cæsar A. Rodney, one of the House managers against Chase. The two impeachments were thus closely connected and their results were similar. In the first place, it was determined that impeachment was likely to be, in the petulant language of Jefferson, “a farce” not soon to be used again for partisan purposes. In the second place, it was probable that henceforth, in the Commonwealths as well as in the National Government, political power would be exercised subject to constitutional restraints applied judicially. In the third place, however, the judges would henceforth have to be content with the possession of this magnificent prerogative and dispense with all judicial homilies on “manners and morals.” It was a fair compromise and has on the whole proved a beneficial one.
[CHAPTER IV]
The Trial Of Aaron Burr
When, on March 30, 1807, Colonel Aaron Burr, late Vice-President of the United States, was brought before Chief Justice Marshall in the Eagle Tavern at Richmond on the charge of treason, there began the greatest criminal trial in American history and one of the notable trials in the annals of the law.