Liberty and Order

The Impeachment of Samuel Chase

G&S Typesetters PDF proof 292 the jeffersonian ascendancy Republican attacks on the Federalist judiciary culminated in the impeachment, trial, and narrow acquittal of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. John Randolph of Roanoke, currently a floor leader for the Jeffersonians but later perhaps the most acerbic Old Republican critic of Jefferson’s and Madison’s administrations , managed the impeachment for the House, assisted by Joseph Nicholson, the Republican stalwart from Maryland. Robert Goodloe Harper of Maryland and Caesar Rodney of Delaware, both former Federalist congressmen, defended Chase. James Thomson Callender, who figured prominently in the House indictment, was probably the most scurrilous Republican pamphleteer of the later 1790s. In 1802, however, Callender had turned against Thomas Jefferson, whom he accused of having several children by his slave Sally Hemings. Articles of Impeachment 30 November 1804 ARTICLE 1. That, unmindful of the solemn duties of his office, and contrary to the sacred obligation by which he stood bound to discharge them “faithfully and impartially, and without respect to persons,” the said Samuel Chase, on the trial of John Fries, charged with treason, before the circuit court of the United States, held for the district of Pennsylvania, in the city of Philadelphia, during the months of April and May, one thousand eight hundred, whereat the said Samuel Chase presided, did, in his judicial capacity, conduct himself in a manner highly arbitrary, oppressive, and unjust. . . . ART. 2. That, prompted by a similar spirit of persecution and injustice, at a circuit court of the United States, held at Richmond, in the month of May, one thousand eight hundred, for the district of Virginia, whereat the said Samuel Chase presided, and before which a certain James Thomson Callender was arraigned for a libel on John Adams, then President of the United States, the said Samuel Chase, with intent to oppress and procure the conviction of the said Callender, did overrule the objection of John Basset, one of the jury, who wished to be excused from serving on the said trial because he had made up his mind as to the publication from which the words charged to be libellous in the indictment were extracted; and the said Basset was accordingly sworn and did serve on the said jury, by whose verdict the prisoner was subsequently convicted. ART. 3. That, with intent to oppress and procure the conviction of the prisoner, the evidence of John Taylor, a material witness on behalf of the aforesaid Callender, was not permitted by the said Samuel Chase to be given in, on pretense that the said witness could not prove the truth of the whole of one of the charges contained in the indictment, although the said charge embraced more than one fact. ART. 4. That the conduct of the said Samuel Chase was marked, during the whole course of the said trial, by manifest injustice, partiality, and intemperance. . . . ART. 5. . . . The said Samuel Chase did, at the court aforesaid, award a capias against the body of the said James Thomson Callender, indicted for an offense not capital, whereupon the said Callender was arrested and committed to close custody, contrary to law in that case made and provided. ART. 6. And whereas it is provided by the 34th section of . . . “An act to establish the judicial courts of the United States,” that the laws of the several states, except where the Constitution, treaties, or statutes of the United States shall otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as the rules of decision in trials at common law in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply; and whereas, by the laws of Virginia, it is provided that, in cases not capital , the offender shall not be held to answer any presentment of a grand jury until the court next succeeding that during which such presentment shall have been made, yet the said Samuel Chase, with intent to oppress and procure the conviction of the said James Thomson Callender, did, at the court aforesaid, rule and adjudge the said Callender to trial, during the term at which he, the said Callender, was presented and indicted, contrary to law in that case made and provided. The Impeachment of Samuel Chase, 1804 –1805 21-L2720 9/19/03 7:20 AM Page 292 G&S Typesetters PDF proof The Impeachment of Samuel Chase 1804 –1805 293 ART. 7. That, at a circuit court of the United States for the district of Delaware, held at Newcastle in the month of June, one thousand eight hundred...