The loss of life and estate would often be
virtually included in a sentence which, in its terms, imported nothing
more than dismission from a present, and disqualification for a future,
office. It may be said, that the intervention of a jury, in the second
instance, would obviate the danger. But juries are frequently influenced
by the opinions of judges. They are sometimes induced to find special
verdicts, which refer the main question to the decision of the court.
Who would be willing to stake his life and his estate upon the verdict
of a jury acting under the auspices of judges who had predetermined his
guilt?
Would it have been an improvement of the plan, to have united the
Supreme Court with the Senate, in the formation of the court of
impeachments? This union would certainly have been attended with several
advantages; but would they not have been overbalanced by the signal
disadvantage, already stated, arising from the agency of the same judges
in the double prosecution to which the offender would be liable? To a
certain extent, the benefits of that union will be obtained from making
the chief justice of the Supreme Court the president of the court of
impeachments, as is proposed to be done in the plan of the convention;
while the inconveniences of an entire incorporation of the former into
the latter will be substantially avoided.
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