Volume III Part 23 (2/2)
When the name of Stephen R. Bradley, Republican Senator from Vermont, was reached, he rose in his place and voted against conviction. The auditors were breathless, the Chamber filled with the atmosphere of suspense. It was the first open break in the Republican ranks. Two more such votes and the carefully planned battle would be lost to Jefferson and his party.
”Not guilty!” answered John Gaillard, Republican Senator from South Carolina.
Another Republican defection and all would be over. It came from the very next Senator whose name Aaron Burr p.r.o.nounced, and from one whose answer will forever remain an enigma.
”Senator Giles of Virginia! How say you? Is Samuel Chase guilty of the high crimes and misdemeanors as charged in the articles just read?”
”Not guilty!”
Only sixteen Senators voted to impeach on the first article, nine Republicans aligning themselves with the nine Federalists.
The vote on the other articles showed varying results; on the fourth, fourteen Senators responded ”Guilty!”; on the fifth, the Senate was unanimous for Chase.
Upon the eighth article--Chase's political charge to the Baltimore grand jury--the desperate Republicans tried to recover, Giles now leading them. Indeed, it may be for this that he cast his first vote with his party brethren from the North--he may have thought thus to influence them on the one really strong charge against the accused Justice. If so, his stratagem was futile. The five Northern Republicans (Bradley and Smith of Vermont, Mitch.e.l.l and Smith of New York, and John Smith of Ohio) stood firm for acquittal as did the obstinate John Gaillard of South Carolina.[578]
The punctilious Burr ordered the names of Senators and their recorded answers to be read for verification.[579] He then announced the result: ”It appears that there is not a const.i.tutional majority of votes finding Samuel Chase, Esq. guilty of any one article. It therefore becomes my duty to declare that Samuel Chase, Esq. stands acquitted of all the articles exhibited by the House of Representatives against him.”[580]
The fight was over. There were thirty-four Senators, nine of them Federalists, twenty-five Republicans. Twenty-two votes were necessary to convict. At their strongest the Republicans had been able to muster less than four fifths of their entire strength. Six of their number--the New York and Vermont Senators, together with John Gaillard of South Carolina and John Smith of Ohio--had answered ”not guilty” on every article.
For the first time since his appointment, John Marshall was secure as the head of the Supreme Bench.[581] For the first time since Jefferson's election, the National Judiciary was, for a period, rendered independent. For the first time in five years, the Federalist members of the Nation's highest tribunal could go about their duties without fear that upon them would fall the avenging blade of impeachment which had for half a decade hung over them. One of the few really great crises in American history had pa.s.sed.[582]
”The greatest and most important trial ever held in this nation has terminated justly,” wrote Senator Plumer to his son. ”The venerable judge whose head bears the frost of seventy winters,[583] is honorably acquitted. I never witnessed, in any place, such a display of learning as the counsel for the accused exhibited.”[584]
Chagrin, anger, humiliation, raged in Randolph's heart. His long legs could not stride as fast as his frenzy, when, rus.h.i.+ng from the scene of defeat, he flew to the floor of the House. There he offered an amendment to the Const.i.tution providing that the President might remove National judges on the joint address of both Houses of Congress.[585] ”Tempest in the House,” records Cutler.[586]
Nicholson was almost as frantic with wrath, and quickly followed with a proposal so to amend the Const.i.tution that State Legislatures might, at will, recall Senators.[587]
Republicans now began to complain to their party foes of one another.
Over a ”rubber of whist” with John Quincy Adams, Senator Jackson of Georgia, even before the trial, had spoken ”slightingly both of Mr. John Randolph and of Mr. Nicholson”;[588] and this criticism of Republicans _inter se_ now increased.
Jefferson's feelings were balanced between grief and glee; his mourning over the untoward result of his cherished programme of judicial reform was ameliorated by his pleasure at the overthrow of the unruly Randolph,[589] who had presumed to dissent from the President's Georgia land policy.[590] The great politician's cup of disappointment, which the acquittal of Chase had filled, was also sweetened by the knowledge that Republican restlessness in the Northern States would be quieted; the Federalists who were ready, on other grounds, to come to his standard would be encouraged to do so; and the New England secession propaganda would be deprived of a strong argument. He confided to the gossipy William Plumer, the Federalist New Hamps.h.i.+re Senator, that ”impeachment is a farce which will not be tried again.”[591]
The Chief Justice of the United States, his peril over, was silent and again serene, his wonted composure returned, his courage restored. He calmly awaited the hour when the wisdom of events should call upon him to render another and immortal service to the American Nation. That hour was not to be long delayed.
FOOTNOTES:
[430] Giles was appointed Senator August 11, 1804, by the Governor to fill the unexpired term of Abraham Venable who resigned in order that Giles might be sent to the Senate. In December the Legislature elected him for the full term. Upon taking his seat Giles immediately became the Republican leader of the Senate. (See Anderson, 93.)
[431] Dec. 21, 1804, _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 322-23.
[432] Dec. 21, 1804. _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 322-23.
[433] Plumer, 274-75; and see especially Plumer, Jan. 5, 1804, ”Congress,” Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.
[434] The powerful Republican organ, the _Aurora_, of Philadelphia, thus indicted the National Judiciary: Because judges could not be removed, ”many wrongs are daily done by the courts to humble, obscure, or poor suitors.... It is a prodigeous monster in a free government to see a cla.s.s of men set apart, not simply to administer the laws, but who exercise a legislative and even an executive power, directly in defiance and contempt of the Const.i.tution.” (_Aurora_, Jan. 28, 1805, as quoted in Corwin, 41.) Professor Corwin says that this utterance was approved by Jefferson.
[435] ”Mr. Giles from Virginia ... is the Ministerial leader in the Senate.” (Plumer to Thompson, Dec. 23, 1804, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.)
”I considered M^{r.} Giles as the ablest _practical_ politician of the whole party enlisted under M^{r.} Jefferson's banners.” (Pickering to Marshall, Jan. 24, 1826, Pickering MSS. Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc.)
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