Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson [Paperback]

William H. Rehnquist (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1993

Chief Justice Rehnquist presents the dramatic account of two of the most important legal decisions ever rendered in the US. The outcomes of these cases have remained of extraordinary importance to government because they continued and strengthened the constitutionally-directed separation of powers. Photos.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

With Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist playing a front-and-center role as the presiding officer in President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, it's no wonder that his 1992 study of the two most important previous impeachments in United States history was brought back into print. But anyone looking for political commentary will probably be disappointed--Grand Inquests is a straightforward, and surprisingly readable, narrative account, top-heavy with historical details.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase was impeached in 1805 both for his political views and as a result of his demeanor as a judge. Rehnquist acknowledges that Chase was "impatient, overbearing, and arrogant," but asserts that his behavior falls far short of the grounds for impeachment: high crimes and misdemeanors. He further argues that the acquittal of Chase helped safeguard the independence of the Supreme Court, preventing future Congresses from removing judges "whose views they considered to be unwise or out of keeping with the times." The acquittal of President Andrew Johnson in his 1868 trial was a similar victory for the executive branch, permitting future chief executives to govern as they see fit ... even if that runs counter to the desires of Congress.

Rehnquist makes it clear that he believes the impeachments of both Chase and Johnson were politically motivated, and that it was a good thing for the United States that neither was convicted. He says a relaxed standard of impeachment would have been like "a sword of Damocles, designed not to fall but to hang" over the head of future presidents who would fear removal from office if they did not go along with Congress. --Linda Killian --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The importance the framers of the Constitution attributed to the balance of powers among the three branches of our government is brilliantly illustrated here by Chief Justice Rehnquist ( The Supreme Court ). Clear expositions of historical and political premises, along with lively evocations of chief players and their milieus, animate the author's engrossing account of the Senate's 1805 impeachment trial and its acquittal of the choleric Supreme Court Justice Chase for his alleged attack on the Constitution during his concurrent term as a circuit court judge. The politically motivated impeachment trial of President Johnson in 1868--he was also acquitted--concerned his removal from office of Secretary of State Edwin Stanton without Senate approval, an alleged violation of the debatable Tenure of Office Act. While Chase's acquittal, writes Rehnquist, assured "the independence of federal judges from congressional oversight" of their judicial opinions, the repeal of the Tenure of Office Act by the Supreme Court in 1926 freed presidents to remove executive officers from their posts at will. Thus Rehnquist concludes from his present-day perspective that with the threat of congressional impeachment largely curtailed--except for criminal offenses--the chief executive is now directly answerable only to the electorate. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Quill (Harper) (October 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688128394
• ISBN-13: 978-0688128395
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,379,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good summary of the issues surrounding impeachment, March 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments Of Justice Samuel Chase And President Andrew Johnson (Paperback)

Rehnquist is obviously alot more thoughtful than the "liberal" community, in which I often count myself, has been led to believe. He provides a good summary of the issues that surrounded the impeachments of Chase & Johnson, the constitutional questions these events raised & helped to settle, and their long-term implications. Rehnquist is not, in this book anyhow, the best stylist in the world, but he also doesn't descend into so much legal mumbo-jumbo that non-lawyers would be turned off. Also, his sections of background history are just OK. History buffs may find some factual, emphasis or interpretative points to dispute in those sections.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Jewel of a Book, July 4, 2007

By 

Gerald E. Weaver (Wichita, Kansas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments Of Justice Samuel Chase And President Andrew Johnson (Paperback)

This book is much more than an account of the two major impeachments in U.S. history. The bulk of the book consists of a remarkably well-written history lesson covering the period of 1775 to the 1868 Johnson impeachment trial. The last part of the book then discusses the lessons to be learned from these two impeachment efforts.

The 1805 impeachment trial of Justice Chase, a Federalist judge, involved his (mis)handling of 3 cases as a circuit rider judge (in those days Supreme Court justices actually spent most of their time riding circuit). The best the Republicans could do was a 19-15 vote for conviction on one of the Articles, still 4 votes short of the 2/3 needed to remove Chase from office. The effort failed because 6 Republicans defected and voted for acquittal, realizing the impeachment effort was partisan in nature and contrary to what the founding fathers intended.

The 1868 impeachment effort against Johnson similarly failed when 7 Republicans voted against removal. (Terminology here can be confusing; in 1805 Jefferson's party was called "Republican", and later came to be called "Democratic". In 1868 "Republican" was used for the new party formed in the 1850's.) These 7 Republicans can now be seen as the true constitutional heroes that they are. Had the radical Republicans succeeded in removing Johnson, it would mean that from then on the President would serve at the pleasure of the Senate, and the true purpose of the impeachment provision in the Constitution would have been obliterated in a sea of partisanship.

Rehnquist concludes that "The importance of these two acquittals in our constitutional history can hardly be overstated....These two "cases"--decided not by the courts but by the United States Senate--surely contributed as much to the maintenance of our tripartite federal system of government as any case decided by any court." He is right, and he has contributed enormously to our understanding of this issue by his articulate discussion of it contained in this book.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Grand Piece of Writing, December 14, 2006

By 

Hansen Alexander (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments Of Justice Samuel Chase And President Andrew Johnson (Paperback)

Who knew that the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, leader of the conservative counter revolution against the legacy of the Warren Court, wrote so well?

You would not guess that from his opinions penned over a generation. His court writing is exact but dry, a great contrast to the colorful rhetoric of his conservative colleague, Antonin Scalia.

But in "Grand Inquests," a telling of the impeachment trials of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson, Rehnquist demonstrates a compelling narrative style and the novelist's keen eye for detail. Rehnquist also demonstrates the good novelist's ability to describe the important details at considerable length while limiting the lesser facts in length.

The important details of these two impeachments surround the personalities of the major players that brought about the impeachment instead of ascribing the trials to historical circumstances, as if the impeachments were forced by mysterious forces instead of angry human beings. Rehnquist paints vivid portraits of Andrew Johnson, a one-time tailor and self-made politician, the ambitious and independent Edwin Stanton, whose refusal to give up his post as Secretary of War set the impeachment proceedings in motion, and the Radical Republicans who were furious with Johnson for obstructing Reconstruction, Thaddeus Stevens, Ben Wade, George Boutwell, Charles Sumner, and Ben Butler.

Rehnquist makes a convincing argument that men make their own destiny by their choices when he implies, quite correctly in my view, that Justice Chase would not have been impeached if he were not abrasive and heavy handed in court, and President Johnson would not have been impeached if he had been more even tempered in his disagreement about Reconstruction and presidential appointment power with the opposition Republicans. Johnson, for example, referred to Radical Republican leaders Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner as "traitors."

Both impeachment proceedings occurred in the wake of highly charged political times, Rehnquist observes. Chase was impeached shortly after President John Adams had packed the federal government with appointees of his Federalist Party in the final hours of his presidency. And Adams had also tried to stifle dissent by his political opponents, incited by his idelogical adversary, Thomas Jefferson, with the repressive alien and sedition acts. Johnson faced impeachment during the difficult aftermath of the Civil War. Brave Senators such as Bradley of Vermont and Gaillard of South Carolina risked their political careers to acquit Chase. Likewise, Senators Edmund Ross of Kansas and Lyman Trumbull of Illinois defied the public hysteria against Johnson.

Rehnquist brilliantly cuts through the emotions of the times to show that Chase basically faced impeachment because of biased instructions to a grand jury and questionable instructions to a jury in a criminal trial involving sedition. Johnson was impeached for opposing Reconstruction and firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.In firing Stanton, Johnson's political enemies asserted that he was in violation of a congressional act, The Tenure of Office Act, which called for Senate approval of presidential firings. Clinton, of course, whose trial Rehnquist presided over, was impeached for engaging in oral sex in a bathroom near the Oval Office.

Presidential powers became more firmly defined by Supreme Court decisions in the 20th century, Rehnquist notes. A President's sole authority to hire and fire executive department political appointees was not as clear in 1866 as it is in 2006. Indeed the rule of law on presidential power to fire at will political appointees was not decided until "Humphrey's Executor v. United States" in 1935. The Court then held that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had the power to fire Federal Trade Commissioner William E. Humphrey on political grounds. Today we would laugh at the idea that a President would have to seek permission from Congress to fire an executive branch official who was not a career public employee.

Rehnquist has written the best book on impeachment. Read it and enjoy it.

[Hansen Alexander is an attorney who lives and works in New York City. He is the author, most recently, of the introductory legal text "A Tort is Not a Pastry."]