intent, as well as acts beyond what the law authorized.[1]
A few Framers would have stopped there. This minority feared vesting any branch of government with the power to end a Presidency; as they saw it, even extreme Presidential wrongdoing could be managed in the normal course (mainly by periodic elections).
That view was decisively rejected. As Professor Raoul Berger writes, "the Framers were steeped in English history; the shades of despotic kings and conniving ministers marched before them."[2] Haunted by those lessons, and convening in the shadow of revolution, the Framers would not deny the Nation an escape from Presidents who deemed themselves above the law. So they turned to a mighty constitutional power, one that offered a peaceful and politically accountable method for ending an oppressive Presidency.
This was impeachment, a legal relic from the British past that over the preceding century had found a new lease on life in the North American colonies. First deployed in 1376—and wielded in fits and starts over the following 400 years—impeachment allowed Parliament to charge royal ministers with abuse, remove them from office, and imprison them. Over time, impeachment helped Parliament shift power away from royal absolutism and encouraged more politically accountable administration. In 1679, it was thus proclaimed in the House of Commons that impeachment was "the chief institution for the preservation of government."[3] That sentiment was echoed in the New World. Even as Parliamentary impeachment fell into disuse by the early 1700s, colonists in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts laid claim to this prerogative as part of their English birthright. During the revolution, ten states ratified constitutions allowing the impeachment of executive officials—and put that power to use in cases of corruption and abuse of power.[4] Unlike in Britain, though, American impeachment did not result in fines or jailtime. It simply removed officials from political power when their conduct required it.
Familiar with the use of impeachment to address lawless officials, the Framers offered a clear answer to Mason's question at the Constitutional Convention, "Shall any man be above justice"?[5] As Mason himself explained, "some mode of displacing an unfit magistrate is rendered indispensable by the fallibility of those who choose, as well as by the corruptibility of the man chosen."[6] Future Vice President Elbridge Gerry agreed, adding that impeachment repudiates the fallacy that our "chief magistrate could do no wrong."[7] Benjamin Franklin, in turn, made the case that impeachment is "the best way" to assess claims of serious wrongdoing by a President; without it, those accusations would
- ↑ See Andrew Kent, Ethan J. Leib & Jed Handelsman Shugerman, Faithful Execution and Article II, 132 Harv. L. Rev. 2111- 2121 (2019).
- ↑ Raoul Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems 4 (1974).
- ↑ Id. at 1 n.2.
- ↑ Frank O. Bowman, III, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump 72 (2019).
- ↑ 2 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention at 65-67.
- ↑ 1 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention at 66.
- ↑ 2 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention at 66.
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