Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/258

1805. party, and for the first time a majority appeared for conviction. Yet even with this support, the impeachers were far from obtaining the required twenty-three votes; the five recalcitrant Northern democrats stood firm; Gaillard was not to be moved, and Stone of North Carolina joined him:—the impeachers could muster but eighteen votes. They did no better on the fourth article. On the fifth,—Randolph's interpolated charge, which alleged no evil intent,—every member of the Senate voted "Not Guilty;" on the sixth, which was little more than a repetition of the fifth, only four senators could be found to condemn, and on the seventh, only ten. One chance of conviction remained, the eighth article, which covered the judge's charge to the grand jury at Baltimore in 1803. There lay the true cause of impeachment; yet this charge had been least pressed and least defended. The impeachers brought out their whole strength in its support; Giles, Jackson, Samuel Smith, and Stone united in pronouncing the judge guilty: but the five Northern democrats and Gaillard held out to the last, and the managers saw themselves deserted by nearly one fourth of the Republican senators. Nineteen voices were the utmost that could be induced to sustain impeachment.

The sensation was naturally intense; and yet the overwhelming nature of the defeat would have warranted an excitement still greater. No one understood better the meaning of Chase's acquittal than John Randolph, whose authority it overthrew. His