The resolution under consideration has been materially altered this morning, and I gave my vote for the alteration, because I believed that the misconduct of a court ought not to be attributed to a single judge.
I feel it my duty, Mr. Speaker, to remark, that the information which is possessed by the members of this House, respecting the conduct of those judges, is extremely contradictory. No gentleman has told us that he possesses personal knowledge of the misconduct imputed to those officers; and I possess information on the subject, derived soon after the transaction, from a source which I considered as authentic, and which produced so deep an impression upon my mind, that I should scarcely abandon my belief of its authenticity, even from the general recollection of persons who were present at the scene. I understand that the judges did nothing more or less than decide a legal question in a legal manner. They did not interdict the counsel for the prisoner from examining a question of law, but they restricted them to what they considered as their legal and constitutional limits. They told them that the constitution of our country had clearly and explicitly defined the crime of treason, and confined them to the plain field of the constitution, inhibiting them from a resort to British authorities to prove that to be treason which the constitution of our country had not made treason, or to prove that what our constitution had made treason, was not recognized as such by foreign precedents. This statement may be incorrect, and, if it be correct, the conduct of the judges may have been improper and severe, but it cannot justify an impeachment. And if the court went farther, interrupted the counsel for the prisoner, informed them that it was the province of the court to determine points of law, declared that their opinion was fixed upon those points, and even forbade the counsel to prolong their arguments upon them, it might still be questionable whether the conduct of the court rendered its members liable to impeachment. A venerable gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. FINDLAY,) who has long been in the service of his country, has been incorrect in stating that I had observed that I would never go into the inquiry without evidence; that incorrectness must have been unintentional; if I used an expression of that description, it was a _lapsus linguæ_: but I am confident that I said, and I am certain that I intended to say, that I thought it improper to institute the inquiry until some fact or facts should be stated as a ground of accusation. A gentleman from Virginia (Mr. JACKSON) has told us that common fame is sufficient ground for impeachment in Great Britain. That gentleman has not adduced his authorities for this proposition, and, had he adduced them, I am confident they would not have answered his purpose, when contemplated in all their bearings, when examined with all their qualifications. The same gentleman also observed, if I understood him correctly, that were he satisfied that the conduct of the judges, in the case alluded to, was legal and correct, he would still vote for the inquiry. To me this declaration appears extraordinary. Why vote for an inquiry when satisfied that no criminality existed?