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Speaking for all the Managers he said, "We define an impeachable high crime or misdemeanor to be one in its nature or consequences subversive of some fundamental or essential principle of government or highly prejudicial to the public interest; and this may consist of a violation of the Constitution, of law, of an official oath, or of duty, by an act committed or omitted; or, without violating a positive law, by the abuse of discretionary powers from improper motives or for any improper purpose."
"I haven't a notion; besides, 'tis no difference, since he took less notice of you than any of the rest. Now, if he'd taken more, it would have mattered a great deal." Bathsheba was suffering from the reverse feeling just then, and they bowled along in silence. A low carriage, bowling along still more rapidly behind a horse of un- impeachable breed, overtook and passed them.
"If the crimes which AEschines saw me committing against the state were as heinous as he so tragically gave out, he ought to have enforced the penalties of the law against them at the time; if he saw me guilty of an impeachable offence, by impeaching and so bringing me to trial before you; if moving illegal decrees, by indicting me for them.
As the Fourteenth Amendment was not declared adopted or a part of the Constitution for more than a year after the transmission of that dispatch, and as the Constitution of the United States prohibits any abridgment of the freedom of speech, and as this remark was unaccompanied by any act in violation of law, it is difficult to see how it could be construed into an impeachable offense.
If the Secretary of the Treasury were impeached for removing the deposits, could he justify himself by saying that he did it by the President's direction? If he could, then no executive officer could ever be impeached who obeys the President; and the whole notion of making such officers impeachable at all would be farcical.
Suppose, thought Henry, that in that hall there were one or more delegates whose credentials were impeachable; delegates, perhaps who had come here by ruse with forged authority, or by force, having stolen the credentials from the rightful owner.... It might be done: it surely could be done, by some unprincipled adventurer from a far country.
If they are so, however, the President might have the POWER to do them under the law; still, being so done, they are acts of official misconduct, and as we have seen, impeachable. The President has the legal power to do many acts which, if done in disregard of his duty, or for improper purposes, then the exercise of that power is an official misdemeanor.
It was proven by documents and personal testimony not impeachable, that a Captain-General's launch had been used to smuggle Mexican dollars, that the annual military expedition to the southern islands was a stated speculation of the Captain-General amounting to $200,000, in one case raised to $400,000, that the same high official made an excursion to all the custom houses on the islands ordered the money and books aboard his ship and never returned either, that one way of bribery was for presents to be made to the wives of officials of great power and distinction; one lady is named to whom business men when presenting a splendid bracelet, waited on her with two that she might choose the one most pleasing, and as she had two white arms, she kept both.
I say that if the Crown could be responsible, his Majesty but certainly the Ministers, and even these law officers themselves through whose hands the Acts passed, biennially in Ireland, or annually in the Colonies are in an habitual course of committing impeachable offences.
"If I were the President's counselor," said he, "I would advise him, if you preferred Articles of Impeachment, to demur to your jurisdiction and to that of the Senate, and issue a proclamation giving you and all the world notice that while he held himself impeachable for misdemeanors in office before the Constitutional tribunal, he never would subject the office he holds in trust to the irregular, unconstitutional, and fragmentary bodies who propose to strip him of it."
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