Particular
misconstructions and contraventions of the will of the legislature may
now and then happen; but they can never be so extensive as to amount to
an inconvenience, or in any sensible degree to affect the order of the
political system. This may be inferred with certainty, from the general
nature of the judicial power, from the objects to which it relates, from
the manner in which it is exercised, from its comparative weakness, and
from its total incapacity to support its usurpations by force. And the
inference is greatly fortified by the consideration of the important
constitutional check which the power of instituting impeachments in one
part of the legislative body, and of determining upon them in the other,
would give to that body upon the members of the judicial department.
This is alone a complete security. There never can be danger that the
judges, by a series of deliberate usurpations on the authority of the
legislature, would hazard the united resentment of the body intrusted
with it, while this body was possessed of the means of punishing their
presumption, by degrading them from their stations. While this ought to
remove all apprehensions on the subject, it affords, at the same time, a
cogent argument for constituting the Senate a court for the trial of
impeachments.
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