we know the nature of impeachment. we've been talking about it awhile now. it is chiefly designed for the president and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. it is designed to "bridle" the executive if he engages in excesses. "it is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men."² the framers confided in the congress the power if need be, to remove the president in order to strike a delicate balance between a president swollen with power and grown tyrannical, and preservation of the independence of the executive.
the nature of impeachment: a narrowly channeled exception to the separation-of-powers maxim. the federal convention of 1787 said that. it limited impeachment to high crimes and misdemeanors and discounted and opposed the term "maladministration." "it is to be used only for great misdemeanors," so it was said in the north carolina ratification convention. and in the virginia ratification convention: "we do not trust our liberty to a particular branch. we need one branch to check the other."
"no one need be afraid" -- the north carolina ratification convention -- "no one need be afraid that officers who commit oppression will pass with immunity." "prosecutions of impeachments will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community," said hamilton in the federalist papers, number 65. "we divide into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused."³ i do not mean political parties in that sense.
the drawing of political lines goes to the motivation behind impeachment; but impeachment must proceed within the confines of the constitutional term "high crime[s] and misdemeanors." of the impeachment process, it was woodrow wilson who said that "nothing short of the grossest offenses against the plain law of the land will suffice to give them speed and effectiveness. indignation so great as to overgrow party interest may secure a conviction; but nothing else can."
common sense would be revolted if we engaged upon this process for petty reasons. congress has a lot to do: appropriations, tax reform, health insurance, campaign finance reform, housing, environmental protection, energy sufficiency, mass transportation. pettiness cannot be allowed to stand in the face of such overwhelming problems. so today we are not being petty. we are trying to be big, because the task we have before us is a big one.
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