Page:Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction.djvu/295

 tion against the President was held to be, not a court, but the Senate of the United States, "convened as a constitutional tribunal to inquire into and determine whether Andrew Johnson, because of malversation in office, is longer fit to retain the office of President of the United States, or hereafter to hold any office of honor or profit." A very important deduction from this proposition was that the ordinary rules of evidence need not be observed, and that each senator in giving judgment was free to rest his opinion upon any personal information he possessed that bore on the general question of fitness, without being at all confined to the merits of the case made on the particular articles. Each senator must be a law unto himself, and must give his verdict on his own views of what the country's welfare demanded.

As against this doctrine, the defenders of the President pointed out that to adopt these extreme conclusions would obviously destroy every vestige of judicial character in the Senate's action. A presentation of formal articles of impeachment by the House would be unnecessary, and the form of a trial a work of supererogation. The constitution, it was argued, contemplates the substance as well as the form of judicial action by the Senate. That body is empowered to "try" impeachments. It assumes a peculiar character through the oath required by the senators when sitting for that