Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/250

 242 either secured, or compelled? Does it not at once submit the whole power of impeachment to the control of the state governments, and thus surrender into their hands all the means of making it efficient and satisfactory? In political contests it cannot be supposed, that either the states, or the state functionaries, will not become partisans, and deeply interested in the success, or defeat of measures, in the triumph, or the ruin of rivals, or opponents. Parties will naturally desire to screen a friend, or overwhelm an adversary; to secure the predominance of a local policy, or a state party; and if so, what guarantee is there for any extraordinary fidelity, independence, or impartiality, in a tribunal so composed, beyond all others? Descending from such general inquiries to more practical considerations, it may be asked, how shall such a tribunal be composed? Shall it be composed of state executives, or state legislators, or state judges, or of a mixture of all, or a selection from all? If the body is very large, it will become unwieldy, and feeble from its own weight. If it be a mixture of all, it will possess too many elements of discord and diversities of judgment, and local and professional opinion. If it be homogeneous in its character, as if it consist altogether of one class of men, as of the executives of all the states, or the judges of the Supreme Courts of all the states, can it be supposed, (even if an equality in all other respects could be certainly obtained,) that persons, selected mainly by the states for local and peculiar objects, could best administer the highest and most difficult functions of the national government?

§ 770. The Federalist has spoken with unusual freedom and directness on this subject. "The first scheme," (that is, of vesting the power in some