Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/249

230 character with which he was invested to the low purpose of an electioneering partisan."

Serious as some of these charges certainly were,—for in the case of Callender, even more than in that of Fries, Chase's temper had led him to strain, if not to violate, the law,—none of the articles alleged an offence known to the statute-books or the common law; and Randolph's first task was to show that they could be made the subject of impeachment, that they were high crimes and misdemeanors in the sense of the Constitution, or that in some sense they were impeachable. Instead of arguing this point, he contented himself by declaring the theory of the defence to be monstrous. His speech touched the articles, one by one, adding little to their force, but piling one mistake on another in its assertions of fact and assumptions of law.

Ten days passed in taking evidence before the field was cleared and the discussion began. Then, Feb. 20, 1805, Early and Campbell led for the managers in arguments which followed more or less closely in Randolph's steps, inferring criminality in the accused from the manifest tenor of his acts. Campbell ventured to add that he was not obliged to prove the accused to have committed any crime known to the law,—it was enough that he had transgressed the line of official duty with corrupt motives; but this timid incursion into the field of the Constitution was supported by no attempt at argument. "I lay it down as a settled rule of decision," said he, "that when a