have found directly in point on this question, viz. State v. Police, 16 Mo. App. 48, 50. This court in the Peterson case quoted therefrom with respect language of such importance to the questions here involved that we take the liberty of reproducing it on account of its practical suggestive force. Premising that in the Missouri case the right to suspend the official depended upon a power conferred solely by statute, the court said: "The suspension of an officer, pending his trial, for misconduct, so as to tie his hands for the time being, seems to be universally accepted as a fair, salutary, and often necessary incident of the situation. His retention, at such time, of all the advantages and opportunities afforded by official position may enable and encourage him not only to persist in the rebellious practice complained of, but also to seriously embarrass his triors in their approaches to the ends of justice. In the absence of any express limitation to the contrary-and none has been shown-we are of opinion that in cases where guiltiness of the offense charged will involve a dismissal from office there is, on general principles, no arbitrary or improper exercise of a supervisory authority in a suspension of the accused pending his trial in due and proper form.'

The reasons stated in the above case for holding that the right of suspension during proceedings for removal seem to be so essential to a complete and thorough investigation of an official charged with misconduct as to furnish an unanswerable argument to the claim of respondent that the minor right to suspend is not included in the major authority to remove.

It ought not, therefore, to be held that the unquestionable power to remove should be so handicapped by an interpretation of the statute as to defeat the very object it seeks to attain. Presumably the chief executive of the state will act upon an exalted sense of justice and high considerations of duty, and only in cases where strong reasons exist for exercising the power of suspension will impose unnecessary burdens upon the accused official after a sufficient review of the reasons upon which that power is to be exercised.

The order to suspend should not prejudice the respondent in any way. He is entitled to a fair hearing, with all the presumptions of innocence and good intentions in his favor. These ought to continue until the termination of the investigation and the final action of the governor, but we are compelled to adopt the view

that, to give the power of removal practical effect, it must be left to executive discretion and judgment to direct a temporary suspension of the official, as so ordered in this case. Let the writ of ouster issue as prayed for.

IV. IMPEACHMENT.

TRIAL OF ANDREW JOHNSON.

In the Senate of the United States. 1868.

Opinion of Mr. Senator DAVIS.

Our system of impeachment has not been transferred from any other government, nor was its organization confided to Congress; but the cautious statesmen who founded our government incorporated it in and built it up as part of the Constitution itself. They enumerated its essential features and made it sui generis. 1. No person but civil officers of the United States are subject to impeachment. 2. The Senate is constituted the court of impeachment. 3. The Chief Justice of the United States is to preside over the court when the President is upon trial, and the Vice-President or the President pro tempore of the Senate in all other cases. 4. No conviction can take place unless two-thirds of the senators present concur. 5. No impeachment can be made but for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors against the United States. 6. Judgment of impeachment cannot extend to death or other corporal punishment, or fine or imprisonment; but is restricted to removal from and disqualification to hold office; but the party convicted nevertheless to be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law. The offenders, offences, court and punishment are all distinctly impressed with political features.

The Senate now and for this occasion is a court of impeachment for the trial of the President of the United States, and, like all other courts, is bound by the law and the evidence properly applicable to the case.

One of the leading and inflexible laws which bind this court is embodied in the Constitution in these words:

"No person shall be removed from office but on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.'

That is the category of all impeachable offences, and they must be acts declared by the law of the United States to be treason or bribery, or some other offence which it denominates a "high crime or misdemeanor." The laws which define impeachable offences may be the Constitution, or acts of Congress, or the common law, or some other code, if adopted either by the Constitution or act of Congress. No common-law offence, as such merely, can sustain the impeachment of any officer; but to have that authority it must have become a part of the law of the United States by being adopted by the Constitution or some act of Congress, and would have operation and effect only to the extent that it was consistent with the provisions, principles and general spirit of the Constitution.

It results from this view of the law of impeachment, that as none of the articles against the President charge him with treason or bribery, which are made impeachable offences by the Constitution, they, or some of them, must allege against him the doing of an act or acts which a law of Congress has declared to be an offence against the United States, and denominated it to be, and in its vicious nature it must be a high crime or misdemeanor, and that the President did that act with a criminal intent to violate the law, to authorize this court to convict him and to pronounce judgment that he be removed from office.

The impeachment of the President of the United States is the arraignment of the executive department of the government by one branch of the legislative department and its trial by the other. The incongruity of such a responsibility and consequent danger of the ultimate subordination of the executive to the legislative department excited the gravest apprehensions of that wisest political sage, Mr. Madison, when the Constitution was being framed. Short of the sword, it is the extreme remedy, and was intended for the worst political disorders of the executive department. Nothing but treason, official bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, made so by law, and also in their nature of deep moral turpitude,

which are dangerous to the safety of the State and which palpably disqualify and make unfit an incumbent to remain in the office of President, can justify its application to him. Cases that do not come up to this measure of delinquency, those who made the Constitution intended should be remedied in the frequency of our elections by the people at the ballot-box; and the public repose and welfare require that they should be referred to that most appropriate tribunal.

Impeachment was not intended to be used as an engine to gratify private malice, to avenge disappointed expectations, to forward schemes of personal ambition, to strengthen the measures or continue the power of a party, to punish partisan infidelity, to repress and crush its dissensions, to build up or put down opposing factions. By our system all that sort of work is to be done in popular canvasses; and to bring the great and extraordinary remedy of impeachment to do any of it, is the vile prostitution of what was intended to be a rare and august remedy for great evils of state.

Opinion of Mr. Senator TRUMBULL.

To do impartial justice to all things appertaining to the present trial, according to the constitution and laws, is the duty imposed on each senator by the position he holds and the oath he has taken, and he who falters in the discharge of that duty, either from personal or party considerations, is unworthy his position and merits the scorn and contempt of all just men.

The question to be decided is not whether Andrew Johnson is a proper person to fill the presidential office, nor whether it is fit that he should remain in it, nor, indeed, whether he has violated the Constitution and laws in other respects than those alleged against him. As well might any other 54 persons take upon themselves by violence to rid the country of Andrew Johnson, because they believe him a bad man, as to call upon 54 senators, in violation of their sworn duty, to convict and depose him for any other causes than those alleged in the articles of impeachment. As well might any citizen take the law into his own hands, and become its executioner, as to ask the senators to convict outside of the case made. To sanction such a principle would be destructive of all law and all liberty worth the name, since liberty unregulated by law is but another name for anarchy.

Unfit for President as the people may regard Andrew Johnson,

and much as they may desire his removal, in a legal and constitutional way, all save the unprincipled and depraved would brand with infamy and contempt the name of any senator who should violate his sworn convictions of duty to accomplish such a result.

Keeping in view the principles by which, as honest men, we are to be guided, let us inquire what the case is.

The first article charges Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, with unlawfully issuing an order, while the Senate was in session, and without its advice and consent, with the intent to remove Edwin M. Stanton from the office of Secretary for the Department of War, contrary to the constitution and the "act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices," passed March 2, 1867. It will be observed that this article does not charge a removal of the Secretary, but only an intent to remove, which is not made an offence by the tenure-of-office act or any other statute.

The second article charges that the President, in violation of the Constitution, and contrary to the tenure-of-office act, and with intent to violate the same, issued to Lorenzo Thomas a letter of authority empowering him to act as Secretary of War ad interim, there being no vacancy in the office of Secretary of War. There is nothing in the tenure-of-office act, or in any other statute, prohibiting the issuing of such a letter, much less making it a crime or misdemeanor. The most that can be said is that it was issued without authority of law.

What has been said in regard to the second article applies with equal force to the third and eighth articles: there being no proof of any unlawful intent to control the disbursements of the moneys appropriated for the military service, as charged in the eighth article.

Articles four, five, six and seven taken together, charge in substance that the President conspired with Lorenzo Thomas and other persons with intent, by intimidation and threats, to prevent Edwin M. Stanton from holding the office of Secretary of War, and by force to seize the property of the United States in the Department of War; also that he conspired to do the same thing contrary to the tenure-of-office act, without any allegation of force or threats.

The record contains no sufficient proof of the intimidation, threats, or force charged; and as the President had, in my opinion, the right to remove Mr. Stanton, his order for that purpose, as also