Daily stories of Pennsylvania

by Frederic Antes Godcharles

The matter was considered in General Assembly and the House recommended that the court be impeached for high misdemeanors. Articles of complaint were prepared and the impeachment sent to the Senate. It was not until the subsequent session that proceedings were had when upon the final vote in the Senate, 13 voted guilty and 11 not guilty. The constitutional majority of two-thirds not being obtained the accused were acquitted.

In this proceeding the chief point in connection was the extent to which the common law of England was applicable or in force in Pennsylvania; whether the justices had exceeded their authority in construing its provisions and harmonizing them with the statutes then in force, and also with peculiar exigencies of the case out of which the impeachment had grown.

As an element of State history the affair of the impeachment of the justices was of minor importance. In its relation to the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth, it was a subject of great moment, and was discussed and commented upon in all the populous States of the country, as the beginning of a movement to set aside the strict teachings of English common law and to establish precedents applicable to our own necessities without especial regard to those which originally had been imported from the Mother Country.

The time had come when an independent judicial system in this State was made necessary, and this was one of the beginnings.

It can hardly be questioned but that partisan politics played some part in the impeachment proceedings, as Justices Yeates, Shippen and Smith belonged to the Federalist Party, and their impeachment would have made three fine places for their opponents. It was ever thus.

A movement was started in 1805 by a faction of the Democratic Party for revision of the Constitution. It grew out of the impeachment proceedings, and the advocates of the measure proposed to make the election of Senators annual, to reduce the patronage of the Governor and to limit the tenure of the judiciary.

This new party assumed the name of “Constitutionalists,” while those opposed styled themselves “Friends of the People.” The controversy for some reason was carried on with much bitterness.

Governor McKean strongly opposed another constitutional convention, and in a message expressed his views as follows:

“The organization of the judicial power of Pennsylvania has been long and fairly condemned. But there is not a defect suggested from any quarter which the Legislature is not competent to remedy. The authority of the Judges may be restricted or enlarged. The law they dispense, whether statute law or common law, may be annulled or modified. The delay of justice may be obviated by increasing the number of judges in proportion to the obvious increase of judicial business or by instituting local tribunals, where local cases demand a more constant exercise of jurisdiction.”

Although the constitutional convention was not held, the proposition found many supporters in all parties. Under the changed conditions McKean’s friends knew that Editor Duane’s influence would seek to defeat his renomination for Governor if possible. The nomination for Governor was then made by a legislative caucus.