power should be lodged in the hands of those who from the mode of their election and the tenure of their offices would most accurately express the popular will and at the same time be most directly and speedily amenable to the people.  The theory of these wise and benignant intentions is in the present case effectually defeated by the proceedings of the Senate.  The members of that body represent not the people, but the States; and though they are undoubtedly responsible to the States, yet from their extended term of service the effect of that responsibility during the whole period of that term must very much depend upon their own impressions of its obligatory force.  When a body thus constituted expresses beforehand its opinion in a particular case, and thus indirectly invites a prosecution, it not only assumes a power intended for wise reasons to be confined to others, but it shields the latter from that exclusive and personal responsibility under which it was intended to be exercised, and reverses the whole scheme of this part of the Constitution.

Such would be some of the objections to this procedure, even if it were admitted that there is just ground for imputing to the President the offenses charged in the resolution.  But if, on the other hand, the House of Representatives shall be of opinion that there is no reason for charging them upon him, and shall therefore deem it improper to prefer an impeachment, then will the violation of privilege as it respects that House, of justice as it regards the President, and of the Constitution as it relates to both be only the more conspicuous and impressive.

The constitutional mode of procedure on an impeachment has not only been wholly disregarded, but some of the first principles of natural right and enlightened jurisprudence have been violated in the very form of the resolution.  It carefully abstains from averring in which of “the late proceedings in relation to the public revenue the President has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws,” It carefully abstains from specifying what laws or what parts of the Constitution have been violated.  Why was not the certainty of the offense—­“the nature and cause of the accusation”—­set out in the manner required in the Constitution before even the humblest individual, for the smallest crime, can be exposed to condemnation?  Such a specification was due to the accused that he might direct his defense to the real points of attack, to the people that they might clearly understand in what particulars their institutions had been violated, and to the truth and certainty of our public annals.  As the record now stands, whilst the resolution plainly charges upon the President at least one act of usurpation in “the late Executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue,” and is so framed that those Senators who believed that one such act, and only one, had been committed could assent to it, its