Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[927] or penalties, and that the President could not be impeached unless it could be shown that he had done something for which he might be brought before a court and indicted and sentenced to pay a fine at least.

Let me illustrate: The President in their view could be impeached for stealing a chicken, because there is a penalty attached to that by the law; but if he broke his constitutional obligations to his country in any form however gross, an offence not punishable by law, he could not be impeached. Many articles were written to establish this doctrine.

I held entirely different opinions. I believed that the framers of the Constitution, knowing full well the parliamentary and common law of England, which permitted the impeachment of any high officer for any misdemeanor in office or any act detrimental to the crown or country, had with that same view put the words “high crimes and misdemeanors” into our fundamental law wholly regard-less of technicalities, so long as these offences were such as would affect the dignity and purity of conduct in office. When the board of managers met, Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, the “great commoner,” as he was styled, wished to be chosen chairman of the board as he had drawn up one of the principal articles of impeachment. While he was a very great man he was very erratic, and the majority of the board was in favor of the appointment of the Hon. Geo. S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, afterwards Secretary of the Treasury, or of the Hon. John A. Bingham, of Ohio. And I suppose it is no harm to state at this day that considerable acrimony arose between the managers on the subject. I took no part in this because I was desirous of having my own place in the first presentation of the case to the Senate. This would insure my putting the evidence before the Senate in the trial.

The House insisted upon immediate prosecution. We had but three days then in which to get our case ready and prepare the opening arguments for its presentation before the highest court of justice in the land. We spent most of the morning over the question of selecting the chief manager, in selecting the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens chairman of the board, who was to make the closing argument in behalf of the House. That having been settled, I said: “But who is to make the opening argument, and put the case in form for presentation in the ”