3860. IMPEACHMENT, Juries and.—[continued].
You mentioned that some
of your Committee admitted that the introduction
of juries into trials by impeachment under
the VIIIth amendment depended on the question
whether an impeachment for a misdemeanor
be a criminal prosecution? I devoted
yesterday evening to the extracting passages
from the law authors, showing that in lawlanguage,
the term crime is in common use
applied to misdemeanors, and that impeachments,
even when for misdemeanors only are
criminal prosecutions. Those proofs were so
numerous that my patience could go no further
than two authors, Blackstone and Wooddeson.
They show that you may meet that
question without the danger of being contradicted.
The Constitution closes the proofs by
explaining its own meaning when speaking of
impeachments, crimes, and misdemeanors.—
To Henry Tazewell.
Ford ed., vii, 194.
(Pa.,
Jan. 1798)
