War, and also by further unlawfully devising and contriving, and attempting to devise and contrive, means then and there to prevent the execution of an act entitled “An act making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868 and for other purposes,” approved March 2, 1867, and also to prevent the execution of an act entitled “An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,” passed March 2, 1867, whereby the said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, did then, to wit, on the 21st day of February, A.D. 1868, at the city of Washington, commit and was guilty of a high misdemeanor in office.

SCHUYLER COLFAX,

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Attest: 

EDWARD McPHERSON,

Clerk of the House of Representatives.

IN THE SENATE, March 4, 1868.

The President pro tempore laid before the Senate the following letter from the Hon. Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States: 

WASHINGTON, March 4, 1868.

To the Senate of the United States: 

Inasmuch as the sole power to try impeachments is vested by the Constitution in the Senate, and it is made the duty of the Chief Justice to preside when the President is on trial, I take the liberty of submitting, very respectfully, some observations in respect to the proper mode of proceeding upon the impeachment which has been preferred by the House of Representatives against the President now in office.

That when the Senate sits for the trial of an impeachment it sits as a court seems unquestionable.

That for the trial of an impeachment of the President this court must be constituted of the members of the Senate, with the Chief Justice presiding, seems equally unquestionable.

The Federalist is regarded as the highest contemporary authority on the construction of the Constitution, and in the sixty-fourth number the functions of the Senate “sitting in their judicial capacity as a court for the trial of impeachments” are examined.

In a paragraph explaining the reasons for not uniting “the Supreme Court with the Senate in the formation of the court of impeachments” it is observed that—­

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 by the plan of the Convention, while the inconveniences of an entire incorporation of the former into the latter will be substantially avoided.  This was, perhaps, the prudent mean.

This authority seems to leave no doubt upon either of the propositions just stated; and the statement of them will serve to introduce the question upon which I think it my duty to state the result of my reflections to the Senate, namely, At what period, in the case of an impeachment of the President, should the court of impeachment be organized under oath, as directed by the Constitution?