letter of Mr. Blount's, in which designs were demonstrated prejudicial to the interests and injurious to the character of the country. A committee was promptly appointed, and an impeachment was decreed by the house. Eleven managers were chosen to conduct this "high constitutional proceeding." Mr. Sitgreaves, who had been originally the chairman of this honourable committee, was appointed a commissioner under the sixth article of the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, with Great Britain, and the duties of that station devolved on Mr. Bayard. To the articles of impeachment exhibited, the accused pleaded to the jurisdiction of the senate; upon the principle that a senator is not a civil officer, within the meaning of the constitution; and that the courts of common law were "competent to the cognizance, prosecution, and punishment of the said crimes and misdemeanors, if the same have been perpetrated, as has been suggested and charged by the said articles." The preliminary question growing out of this plea was to be discussed, and the direction of this delicate and interesting inquiry, was submitted to the chairman, and Mr. Harper, one of the managers. The subject underwent a laborious and ingenious discussion, in which the constitution was thoroughly sifted, and the doctrines of the common law of England bearing a remote or close analogy to the point in controversy, were made tributary to the talents of the respective advocates.

The decision was adverse to the managers; a majority of fourteen to eleven senators deciding, "that the matter alleged in the plea of the defendant is sufficient in law to show that this court ought not to hold jurisdiction of the said impeachment, and that the said impeachment is, dismissed." The efforts were abortive, because the cause was insupportable; but the exertion was not the less honourable, nor the display of genius and erudition the less brilliant, because success did not crown them.

It was the happy and peculiar quality of Mr. Bayard to excite the esteem and command the confidence of both of the

great political parties, into which the nation since its independence has been divided. Though always consistent and firm in the course which he had originally adopted, yet he never sacrificed or rendered subservient the cause of his country to purposes of party ambition or animosity. He was a federalist, because he believed that the dearest rights and best interests of the nation were involved in and promoted by the great system of policy, and course of measures, adopted and pursued by federalists. His acquaintance with history, and knowledge of human nature, convinced him that men must be governed that they may be free and happy. He was opposed to anti-federalism, because he thought that the demoralizing and pernicious example of a sister republic had threatened to involve America in the vortex of its contagion; and that a diminished strength of government, and adoption of disorganizing principles, would lead to the result here which he early and confidently predicted with regard to France. But he had no party feelings, distinguished from those of patriotism. He always keenly felt for the sufferings, and gloried in the triumphs of his country: his sensibility was actively and constantly alive to her slightest wrongs; and the interest that he felt not only became matured into the keenest perception of what was due to the nation's honour and advantage, but often grew into a morbid and feverish irritability on points of national feeling and concern.

At an early period of his political career, Mr. Bayard was designated as a proper representative of the character and concerns of the nation abroad. His political sagacity, personal intrepidity, and cool discriminating judgment, could not fail to distinguish him as peculiarly qualified for diplomacy. Accordingly, not long before the close of Mr. Adams's presidential career, he offered to Mr. Bayard the appointment of envoy to the French republic. This, from motives of prudence, he thought proper to decline.

At the first election of Mr. Jefferson, a most extraordinary scene was displayed. The constitution provides, that

"the person having the greatest number of votes shall be the president, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the house of representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for president." In that situation stood the candidates, and the election devolved of consequence upon the house of representatives. No less than thirty-six times was the vote ineffectual, each party, equally zealous, and equally numerous, adhering to its candidate. The federalists of the house adopted, as they believed the less evil, the side of Mr. Burr, and persevered during so many abortive efforts to give him their votes. It was at length perceived, that a pertinacious adherence to this course of conduct might expose the country to greater embarrassment and difficulty than even the selection of a president, who was considered dangerous; and some of the federalists determined to withdraw from him their opposition, without giving him direct countenance and support. They accordingly threw into the box blank votes; and the election of Mr. Jefferson was thus obtained. By a sacrifice of personal feeling and judgment, which required no ordinary firmness and magnanimity, Mr. Bayard, by this means, principally contributed to place in the executive chair the decided enemy of the men and measures that he personally approved; and removed to a distance, apparantly insurmountable, the fulfilment, if they existed, of his own political aspirations. But the good of the country required it, and the sacrifice was made.

A change of hands was now effected in the political game. They who had been accustomed to complain at every measure of the administration, and to find them selves frustrated in every attempt, had become in turn the rulers of the nation's destiny. While the men who had heretofore guided the helm of state, and regulated the courses of the political voyage, yielded their supremacy, and became a reluctant but formidable minority. The contest was stoutly

maintained. The struggle was arduous, and the victory dearly won. The expiring blaze of federal power exhibited a splendour of intellectual effort which will never be forgotten, and left a gloom hanging over the councils of its successors that ages cannot dispel. Inch by inch the ground was contested; and yielded at last, not to the force of argument, or the demonstration of right, but to overwhelming superiority of numbers.

A sweeping revolution of officers, in every department within the control of the executive, was beheld with astonishment. It was however readily submitted to, as it affected not the constitution. But when that instrument appeared to be threatened, the united energies of the party, rallied round its imperishable standard. In their efforts to preserve it unimpaired, they encircled it with a garland of eloquence and patriotism as lasting as the monument it adorns. An able representative from South Carolina,* conjured the majority "to celebrate their victory by more harmless sports. Let them," says he, "triumph over us, but not by immolating the constitution; let them beware, that in erecting a triumphal arch for the celebration of their success, they do not dig a grave, and decree funeral rites for our constitution. Myself and my friends have always been the sincere friends of this constitution, and we will attempt its defence as long as we have the means of making it. We will struggle to the last; if we cannot command success we will endeavour to deserve it; and should the friends of the constitution be subdued by numbers, the ministerial phalanx, in bursting into the temple, will, I hope, find them all at their posts: they will be seen in the portico, the vestibule, and around the altar, grasping, grappling the constitution of their country with the holds of death, and with nolumus mutari on their lips."

Among the most memorable of these struggles, in which the vital principles of the constitution were supposed to be involved, was that for the maintenance of the judiciary_sys• Mr. Rutledge.

tem, established towards the close of the administration of Mr. Adams. The inconvenience of the original organization of the courts of the United States had been long experienced, and a well digested plan had been prepared and substituted with infinite pains. Its chief object was to facilitate the despatch of business; to preserve to the supreme court all its constitutional functions, and to destroy the anomaly of appeals from component parts of a body to the body itself. On the 13th of February, 1801, the act was passed "to provide for the more convenient organization of the courts of the United States." This divided the country into districts, and united those districts into convenient circuits, and prescribed the session of the courts not only in every circuit, but in each subdivision, or district of the circuits. It provided for the appointment of three judges for each of the six circuits, whose duty it should be to hold courts in their different departments at seasonable terms; and authorized appeals to the supreme court in all cases where the sum in controversy should exceed two thousand dollars.

The judges were accordingly appointed, and the courts went into complete and successful operation. The extent of patronage however, which the system was supposed to have conferred on the president, excited the warmest oppugnancy on the part of his political adversaries, and they cherished the hope of speedily effecting a change. On the 4th of March following, the new president was inducted into power. The offices within the grasp of executive authority were promptly vacated, and a host of new incumbents was summoned to fill the empty chairs. The constitution, it was maintained, permitted no such arrangement with regard to the judiciary. The dum bene se gesserit tenure of its offices forbade an appeal to the president, and the constitution must be unravelled by the legislature. Still a direct infraction of its explicit provisions would have been too palpable and partial an effort of favouritism, and individual removal was therefore impracticable. But the object would be no less effectually attained by