Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/223

 CH. X.] the general principles of justice, that the same tribunal should at once be the accusers and the Judges; that they should first decide upon the verity of the accusation, and then try the offenders. The first object in the administration of justice is, or ought to be, to secure an impartial trial. This is so fundamental a rule in all republican governments, that it can require little reasoning to support it; and the only surprise is, that it could ever have been overlooked.

§ 742. The practice of impeachments seems to have been originally derived into the common law from the Germans, who, in their great councils, sometimes tried capital accusations relating to the public. Licet apud concilium accusare, quoque et discrimen capitis intendere. When it was adopted in England, it received material improvements. In Germany, and also in the Grecian and Roman republics, the people were, at the same time, the accusers and the judges; thus trampling down, at the outset, the best safeguards of the rights and lives of the citizens. But in England, the house of commons is invested with the sole power of impeachment, and the house of lords with the sole power of trial. Thus, a tribunal of high dignity, independence, and intelligence, and not likely to be unduly swayed by the influence of popular opinion, is established to protect the accused, and secure to him a favourable hearing. Montesquieu has deemed such a tribunal worthy of the highest praise. Machiavel has ascribed the ruin of the republic of Florence to the want of a mode of providing by