Since Constitution was ratified
Impeachment has been used only 12 times
By MICHAEL BENEDICT
Special to Newsday
(The writer is a professor at Ohio State
University and author of a book about the
impeachment of President Andrew
Johnson.)
As scandals whirl about the Nixon ad
ministration, Americans for the first time
in more than 100 years are beginning to
consider the possibility of impeaching a
U.S. President. But does anybody know
what impeachment means? Not many
people do. Even Congressmen have found
that they hardly know the meaning or what
the procedure is all about.
In England, where it originated, im
peachment amounted to an alternative
method of accusing men of wrongdoing. It
was used primarily when the traditional
procedure, indictment, was impractical
because of the nature of the misconduct,
the intimidating power of the wrongdoer,
or because he held an official position in
the government.
Indictments were presented by a panel
of respectable men of the local community
(the forerunner of the modem grand jury)
and tried before a judge and jury ac
cording to common law. Impeachments
were presented by the iower branch of
Parliament, the House of Commons, and
tried before the House of Lords according
to parliamentary law.
So the term “impeachment refers to a
mode of accusation and trial, not to the
decision itself: one might be impeached
and still escape conviction, as did Andrew
Johnson, our 17th President.
If found guilty by the House of Lords, a
defendant was liable to the same kind of
punishment as might be inflicted after
conviction through ordinary criminal
process — even death.
By the 17th century, Parliament used
impeachment primarily as a political
weapon in its incessant battles against the
King and his ministers. Royal advisers
sometimes were put to death in essentially
political squabbles.
When American post-Revolutionary
leaders framed our Constitution, they
refined impeachment into a method for
removing “the President, Vice President,
and all civil officers of the United States ..
. for . . . treason, bribery, or other high
crimes and misdemeanors.”
As in England the lower branch of
Congress, the House of Representatives,
must present the impeachment, and the
upper house, the Senate, must then weigh
the evidence and deliver a verdict. But
punishment extends only to removal from
office and disqualification from future
government service. The framers of the
Constitution wanted no political executions
here.
Once a motion to impeach is made, all
other business before the House ceases.
The House Judiciary Committee or a
special committee usually will investigate
the charges and decide if the alleged
misconduct warrants impeachment.
Whether the committee favors or opposes
impeachment in its report, the House must
vote on the question.
If a majority of the representatives
votes in favor, then a committee is ap
pointed to frame the charges, the Articles
of Impeachment, in appropriate language.
Often these same representatives will act
as the prosecutors during the trial before
the Senate. They are called the managers
of impeachment. But the House could
appoint others to manage the im
peachment.
The Senate must promulgate the rules
under which it will hear the case and invite
the defendant to send counsel to hear the
charges and prepare a defense against
them. During the trial, the Senate
generally becomes a quasi-judicial body.
They are no longer performing the
traditional legislative functions.
If the impeachment is of the President,
the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme
Court presides over the trial. Finally, after
hearing testimony and arguments from
both sides, the Senate must vote on the
articles, a two-thirds majority being
required to convict the defendant on any
article.
Since the ratification ot me uonsuiuuon,
there have been only 12 impeachments in
Congress — nine of the defendants were
judges, one a cabinet officer, one a Senator
and one a President. Only four of the
resulting trials, all of judges, wound up in
conviction and removal. The best-known
impeachments all involved to some degree
the most controversial facets of the
proceeding — what constitutes an im
peachable offense, and the closely related
question of the role of partisan politics in
the trial.
That the process might be abused for
political purposes has been pointed out not
only by defense lawyers in those trials, but
also by some reasonably impartial ob
servers. Both have urged limiting the
range of offenses for which government
officers might be impeached. The
procedure may be invoked, they insist,
only when an officeholder is accused of a
crime.
At the other extreme are those observers
who claim that Congress alone determines
whether conduct is impeachable — in
other words, that impeachment is
basically a political proceeding, and that
Congress may impeach whomever and
whenever it wishes.
This was the position taken by a few of
the managers of the impeachment of
President Andrew Johnson in 1868; Gerald
Ford, Republican minority leader in the
House of Representatives, came close to
this view in his efforts to impeach
Supreme Court Justice William Douglas in
1970, and former Attorney General
Richard Kleindiense expressly
propounded it in testimony before
Congress several weeks ago.
The issue was argued extensively in the
second impeachment proceeding in
Congress. In 1803 the Jeffersonian
Republican-dominated House of
Representatives impeached Federalist
Judge John Pickering for alcoholism and
profanity on the bench.
The judge’s defenders accused Congress
of partisanship in presenting and trying
the impeachment and argued that the
charges did not constitute an impeachable
offense, especially since the judge’s son
insisted that his father was insane and
could not be held responsible for his ac
tions. Nonetheless, the managers of the
impeachment got the two-thirds majority
in the Senate necessary for conviction and
removal.
In the 1805 impeachment and trial of
another Federalist judge, Supreme Court
Justice Samuel Chase, the problem
became even plainer. Chase had indulged
in gross improprieties in his judicial
capacity, using his position to persecute
his Republican political opponents. But his
actions did not constitute indictable
crimes. The entire case was shot through
with partisan politics, the offenses
themselves arising from Chase’s own
political passions.
Federalists contended (and many
historians have agreed) that Chase’s
impeachment was merely a prelude to a
wholesale purge of Federalist judges by
the Republican Congress, and that if Chase
had been convicted, Chief Justice John
Marshall would have been the next to go.
While the anti-Chase forces convinced a
majority of Senators to vote for his
removal, the number fell short of the two
thirds needed. Ever since, the Chase
impeachment has been cited as a
precedent both by those who argue for a
narrow interpretation of impeachable
offenses and those who insist on a broad
interpretation.
In 1868 the House of Representatives
presented the only impeachment of a
President. Again partisanship and the
nature of impeachable offsenses were key
issues. So-called “radical Republicans”
for more than a year tried to persuade
more' moderate Republican colleagues
that President Johnson had rendered
himself impeachable by his single-minded
pursuit of a quick restoration of the Union
after the Civil War. They accused him of
constant interference with some
Congressional laws refusal to enforce
others, and abuse of powers clearly his
under the Constitution.
But despite this pressure, Republicans
refused to pass the required resolution
until Johnson apparently violated an
actual statute. Once again the inevitable
charges of partisanship rang forth, but
Republicans divided and the managers
failed by one vote to win a conviction.
Since the failure of the attempt to
remove Johnson there have been six more
impeachments, five of judges, and nearly
all raised the same problems and con
troversies, although none is very well
known. In each case the charges included
nonindictable conduct, and in two of them
the House managers won convictions.
According to both the broad and middle
ground interpretations of the im
peachment power, then, Richard Nixon
probably was impeachable even before the
Watergate scandal. His refusal to spend
Congressionally appropriated funds, his
dismantling of the Office of Economic
Opportunity without Congressional
authorization, his prosecution of the war in
Indochina without Congressional sanction,
his substitution of “executive
agreements” for treaties, which require
Senate ratification, his creation of new
positions in the executive branch without
supporting legislation from Congress, and
his refusal to send the names of the men
whom he appointed to those positions to
the Senate for confirmation all might be
cited as violations of his oath “to preserve,
protect, and defend the Constitution of the
United States.”
Yet under more restrictive in
terpretations of what constitutes im
peachable offenses, interpretations cer
tain to be cited on the President’s behalf in
the event an impeachment movement
develops, such “political” offenses would
not justify impeachment.
That is the importance of the Watergate
scandal, for if evidence emerges that the
President knew of the illegal activities
beforehand, or that he was aware of efforts
to cover them up afterward, then he could
stand charged with an indictable offense,
an offense for which all agree im
peachment is the appropriate remedy, nt
matter how they feel about its practicality
Senators make tidy sums
speaking for citizens
By SPENCER RICH
(C) 1973, The Wasnington Post
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senators earned $590,217 last year for
articles and speeches delivered to trade groups, labor unions, lobbying
associations, college students and religious groups, according to
reports filed this week with the secretary of the Senate.
The $590,217 in fees and honorariums represents a hefty extra
source of income for senators over and above their salaries of $42,500
each a year.
Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who was GOP national chairman during
1972, earned the most for speechmaking. He collected $33,050 for
addressing such groups as the National Farmers Organization ($500
fee), National Association of Home Builders ($1,000 fee), the Gypsum
Drywall Contractors ($2,500) and Tulane University ($5,000).
Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.), a perennial leader in the speaking
circuit, ranked second in 1972 with earnings of $29,135. A big portion
came in $5,000 fees received from the Trade Policy Research Center
and Golden Industries. In 1971, Humphrey led all other Senators with
$83,451, but his earnings dropped off sharply last year
Birch Bayh (D-Ind.), with $26,500, ranked third in 1872; about a
third of his speaking fees came from the National Council of Jewish
Women, United Jewish Appeal, and various other Jewish
organizations. Charitable organizations frequently use glamorous
political figures as a speaker at fund-raising dinners. Many other
Senators in addition to Bayh listed large fees from Jewish and other
denominational organizations.
Bottling a sacred Brazilian drink
and selling an exotic red un-cola
By LEONARD GREENWOOD
< C) 1973, The Los Angeles Times
RIO DE JANEIRO — According to legend, the
Maues Indians of Brazil’s Amazon had a 6-year-old
god child who made sick people well, brought joy to
the sad and gave wilted plants new life. Strangely,
Fresno, Calif., may be interested in that bit of
mythology.
The devil Jurupary, envious of the little god’s
power and popularity, disguised himself as a ser
pent and killed him, according to the Maues. But the
god child’s miraculous powers survived his death.
From the grave where the Maues Indians
buried him there began to grow a sacred tree with a
small bright red fruit. From this hard fruit, the
Indians ground a powder and mixed it with water,
producing a drink that refreshed and brought health
and strength.
And now entrepeneurs are bringing it, bottled,
to California. Modern science gives the name
“paulinia sorbilis sapindacea” to the tree. Early
last century, when the first Western scientists
began penetrating the Amazon forest, they tested
guar ana (pronounced gwah-rah-nah, accent on the
final syllable) and found it to be a mild stimulant
and an excellent digestive aid.
This month, Californians will get an opportunity
to test the powers of the drink when a Brazilian
firm, acting through a new company it has set up in
the United States, starts test marketing in Fresno.
If all goes well — and market research in
dicates that it will — the drink will go on sale in Los
Angeles in October as the first step in the nation
wide campaign.
The invasion of the American market is being
planned by Companhia Alterosa de Cervejas, a
brewery and soft-drinks manufacturer. The com
pany — one of more than 200 which produces
guarana in Brazil — sells under the brand name
Trop, and this is the name it will use in California.
Fresno will be the second practical market
sampling. Nine months ago the firm put limited
supplies into shops in Colorado and was impressed
with the sales.
Alterosa will continue to make the syrup con
centrate in Brazil and send it to the U.S.
“We think Americans are ready for a new
flavor, in addition to the old traditional favorites/'
an Alterosa official said. “They want, something
exotic, and this is it.’’