A THIRD objection to the Senate as a court of impeachments, is drawn
from the agency they are to have in the appointments to office. It is
imagined that they would be too indulgent judges of the conduct of men,
in whose official creation they had participated. The principle of this
objection would condemn a practice, which is to be seen in all the State
governments, if not in all the governments with which we are acquainted:
I mean that of rendering those who hold offices during pleasure,
dependent on the pleasure of those who appoint them. With equal
plausibility might it be alleged in this case, that the favoritism of
the latter would always be an asylum for the misbehavior of the former.
But that practice, in contradiction to this principle, proceeds upon the
presumption, that the responsibility of those who appoint, for the
fitness and competency of the persons on whom they bestow their choice,
and the interest they will have in the respectable and prosperous
administration of affairs, will inspire a sufficient disposition to
dismiss from a share in it all such who, by their conduct, shall have
proved themselves unworthy of the confidence reposed in them.
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