Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/172

1803. had made some statements in regard to Justice Chase's conduct which seemed to call for notice, but that want of time had precluded action. Finding his attention thus drawn to the matter, Randolph gravely continued, he had felt it his duty to investigate Smilie's charges; and having convinced himself that ground for impeachment existed, he asked the House to appoint a committee of inquiry. Such an introduction of a great constitutional struggle was not imposing; but party discipline was at its highest point, and after some vigorous Federalist resistance Randolph carried his motion by a vote of eighty-one to forty. Three Northern democrats voted with the Federalists; and although the defection seemed not serious so far as concerned the scientific Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, whose political principles were liberal enough at all times, some importance even then attached to the vote of John Smith of New York, who was about to enter the Senate and to act as one of Chase's judges.

Meanwhile Judge Pickering's trial began. The Senate, "sitting as a Court of Impeachments," listened while Nicholson, Randolph, Rodney, and six or seven other Republican members "exhibited the grand inquest of the nation." The character of a court was taken in all forms of summons. The Secretary of the Senate signed, and the Sergeant-at-Arms served, the summons to Judge Pickering, while the witnesses were regularly subpœnaed by the Secretary, "to appear before the Senate of the United States in their