Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/226

 218 divide it into parties, more or less friendly, or hostile to the accused. The press, with its unsparing vigilance, will arrange itself on either side, to control, and influence public opinion; and there will always be some danger, that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real proofs of innocence or guilt.

§ 745. On the other hand, the delicacy and magnitude of a trust, which so deeply concerns the political existence and reputation of every man engaged in the administration of public affairs, cannot be overlooked. It ought not to be a power so operative and instant, that it may intimidate a modest and conscientious statesman, or other functionary from accepting office; nor so weak and torpid, as to be capable of lulling offenders into a general security and indifference. The difficulty of placing it rightly in a government, resting entirely on the basis of periodical elections, will be more strikingly perceived, when it is considered, that the ambitious and the cunning will often make strong accusations against public men the means of their own elevation to office; and thus give an impulse to the power of impeachment, by pre-occupying the public opinion. The convention appears to have been very strongly impressed with the difficulty of constituting a suitable tribunal; and finally came to the result, that the senate was the most fit depositary of this exalted trust. In so doing, they had the example before them of several of the best considered state constitutions; and the example, in some measure, of Great Britain. The most strenuous opponent cannot, therefore, allege, that it was a rash and novel experiment; the most unequivocal friend