Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/262

 254 reasoning against vesting any court of law with merely political functions. In the ordinary course of the administration of criminal justice, no court is authorized to remove, or disqualify an offender, as a part of its regular judgment. If it results at all, it results as a consequence, and not as a part of the sentence. But it may be properly urged, that the vesting of such a high and delicate power, to be exercised by a court of law at its discretion, would, in relation to the distinguished functionaries of the government, be peculiarly unfit and inexpedient. What could be more embarrassing, than for a court of law to pronounce for a removal upon the mere ground of political usurpation, or malversation in office, admitting of endless varieties, from the slightest guilt up to the most flagrant corruption? Ought a president to be removed from office at the mere will of a court for political misdemeanours? Is not a political body, like the senate, from its superior information in regard to executive functions, far better qualified to judge, how far the public weal might be promoted by such a punishment in a given case, than a mere juridical tribunal? Suppose the senate should still deem the judgment irregular, or unjustifiable, how is the removal to take effect, and how is it to be enforced? A separation of the removing power altogether from the appointing power might create many practical difficulties, which ought not, except upon the most urgent reasons, to be introduced into matters of government. Without attempting to maintain, that the difficulties would be insuperable, it is sufficient to show, that they might be highly inconvenient in practice.

§ 785. It does not appear from the Journal of the Convention, that the provision thus limiting the sentence upon impeachments to removal and