Page:Democracy in America (Reeve).djvu/143

 functions, and it may pronounce him to be incapable of resuming them or any others for the future. But in this case the political interdict is a consequence of the sentence, and not the sentence itself. In Europe the sentence of a political tribunal is therefore to be regarded as a judicial verdict, rather than as an administrative measure. In the United States the contrary takes place; and although the decision of the senate is judicial in its form, since the senators are obliged to comply with the practices and formalities of a court of justice; although it is judicial in respect to the motives on which it is founded, since the senate is in general obliged to take an offence at common law as the basis of its sentence; nevertheless the object of the proceeding is purely adminisirative.

If it had been the intention of the American legislator to invest a political body with great judicial authority, its action would not have been limited to the circle of public functionaries, since the most dangerous enemies of the state may be in the possession of no functions at all; and this is especially true in republics, where party favour is the first of authorities, and where the strength of many a leader is increased by his exercising no legal power. If it had been the intention of the American legislator to give society the means of repressing state offences by exemplary punishment, according to the practice of ordinary justice, the resources of the penal code would all have been placed at the disposal of the political tribunals. But the weapon with which they are intrusted is an imperfect one, and it can never reach the most dangerous offenders; since men who aim at the entire subversion of the laws are not likely to murmur at a political interdict.

The main object of the political jurisdiction which obtains in the United States is, therefore, to deprive the citizen of an authority which he has used amiss, and to prevent him from ever acquiring it again. This is evidently an administrative measure sanctioned by the formalities of a judicial investigation. In this matter the Americans have created a mixed system: they have surrounded the act which removes a public functionary with the securities of a political trial; and they have deprived all political condemnations of their severest penalties. Every link of the system may easily be traced from this point; we at once perceive why the American constitutions subject all the civil functionaries to the jurisdiction of the senate, while the military, whose crimes are nevertheless more