Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 3.djvu/411

 our citizens, and thereby to deprive them of a trial by jury? This was never intended by the Constitution?

The President, Vice President, and other civil officers, can only be impeached. They only in that case are deprived of a trial by jury; they, when they accept their offices, accept them on those terms, and, as far as relates to the tenure of their offices, relinquish that privilege; they, therefore, cannot complain. Here, it appears to me, the framers of the Constitution have so expressed themselves as to leave not a single doubt on this subject.

In the first article, section the third, of the Constitution, it is declared that, judgment in all cases of impeachment, shall not extend further than removal from office, and disqualification to hold any office of honor, trust, or profit, under the United States. This clearly evinces, that no persons but those who hold offices are liable to impeachment. They are to lose their offices; and, having misbehaved themselves in such manner as to lose their offices, are, with propriety, to be rendered ineligible thereafter. …

The truth is, the framers of the Constitution, for many reasons, which influenced them, did not think proper to place the officers of Government in the power of the two branches of the Legislature, further than the tenure of their office. Nor did they choose to permit the tenure of their offices to depend upon the passions or prejudices of jurors. The very clause in the Constitution, of itself, shows that it was intended the persons impeached and removed from office might still be indicted and punished for the same offence, else the provision would have been not only nugatory, but a reflection on the enlightened body who framed the Constitution; since no person ever could have dreamed that a conviction on impeachment and a removal from office, in consequence, for one offence, could prevent the same person from being indicted and punished for another and different offence. …

I again repeat, that as the framers of the Constitution of the United States did not insert in their Constitution such a clause as is inserted in the constitution of Pennsylvania, it is the strongest proof that they did not mean a judge or other officer should be displaced by an address of any portion of the Legislature, but only according to the Constitutional provisions. …

February 25, [1804.]

Before I conclude, let me add one other proof that the framers of the Constitution never intended that juries should have any power to decide the law contrary to the instructions of the court, much less to decide upon the constitutionality of a law. By the 2d section of the 3d article of the Constitution of the United States, it is