The Life of John Marshall, Volume 3: Conflict and construction, 1800-1815

CHAPTER IV
IMPEACHMENT

The judges of the Supreme Court must fall. Our affairs approach an important crisis. (William Plumer.)

These articles contained in themselves a virtual impeachment of not only Mr. Chase but of all the Judges of the Supreme Court. (John Quincy Adams.)

We shall bring forward such a specimen of judicial tyranny, as, I trust in God, will never be again exhibited in our country. (John Randolph.)

We appear for an ancient and infirm man whose better days have been worn out in the service of that country which now degrades him. (Joseph Hopkinson.)

Our property, our liberty, our lives can only be protected by independent judges. (Luther Martin.)

"We want your offices, for the purpose of giving them to men who will fill them better." In these frank words, Senator William Branch Giles⁴²⁹ of Virginia stated one of the purposes of the Republicans in their determined attack on the National Judiciary. He was speaking to the recently elected young Federalist Senator from Massachusetts, John Quincy Adams.⁴³⁰

They were sitting before the blazing logs in the wide fireplace that warmed the Senate Chamber. John Randolph, the Republican leader of the House, and Israel Smith, a Republican Senator from Vermont, were also in the group. The talk was of the approaching trial of Samuel Chase, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, whom the House had impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. Giles and Randolph were, "with excessive earnestness," trying to convince the doubting Vermont Senator of the wisdom and justice of the Republican method of ousting from the National Bench those judges who did not agree with the views of the Republican Party.

Giles scorned the idea of "an independent judiciary!" The independence claimed by the National judges was "nothing more nor less than an attempt to establish an aristocratic despotism in themselves." The power of the House to impeach, and of the Senate to try, any public officer was unlimited.

"If," continued Giles, "the Judges of the Supreme Court should dare, as they had done, to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional, or to send a mandamus to the Secretary of State, as they had done, it was the undoubted right of the House to impeach them, and of the Senate to remove them for giving such opinions, however honest or sincere they may have been in entertaining them." He held that the Senate, when trying an impeached officer, did not act as a court. "Removal by impeachment was nothing more than a declaration by Congress to this effect: You hold dangerous opinions, and if you are suffered to carry them into effect you will work the destruction of the Nation."⁴³¹

Thus Giles made plain the Republican objective. Judges were to be removed for any cause that a dominant political party considered to be sufficient.⁴³² The National Judiciary was, in this manner, to be made responsive to the popular will and responsible to the representatives of the people in the House and of the States in the Senate.⁴³³

Giles, who was now Jefferson's personal representative in the Senate,⁴³⁴ as he had been in the House, bore down upon his mild but reluctant fellow partisan from Vermont in a "manner dogmatical and peremptory." Not only must the aggressive and irritating Chase be stripped of his robes, but the same fate must fall upon "all other Judges of the Supreme Court except the one last appointed,"⁴³⁵ who, being a Republican, was secure.⁴³⁶ Adams rightly concluded that the plan was to "have swept the supreme judicial bench clean at a stroke."⁴³⁷

For a long time everybody had understood that the impeachment of Chase was only the first step in the execution of the Republican plan to replace with Republicans Marshall and the four Federalist Associate Justices. "The judges of the Supreme Court are all Federalists," wrote Pickering six weeks before Johnson's appointment. "They stand in the way of the ruling power… The Judges therefore, are, if possible, to be removed," by impeachment.⁴³⁸

Nearly two years before, Senator William Plumer of New Hampshire had accurately divined the Republican plan: "The judges of the Supreme Court must fall," he informed Jeremiah Mason. "They are denounced by the Executive, as well as the House. They must be removed; they are obnoxious unyielding men; & why should they remain to awe & embarrass the administration? Men of more flexible nerves can be found to succeed them. Our affairs seem to approach an important crisis."⁴³⁹ The Federalists rightly believed that Jefferson was the directing mind in planning and effecting the subjugation of the National Judiciary. That, said Bayard, "has been an object on which Mr. Jefferson has long been resolved, at least ever since he has been in office."⁴⁴⁰

John Marshall especially must be overthrown.⁴⁴¹ He had done all the things of which Giles and the Republicans complained. He had "dared to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional," had "dared" to order Madison to show cause why he should not be compelled to do his legal duty. Everybody was at last awake to the fact that Marshall had become the controlling spirit of the Supreme Court and of the whole National Judiciary.

Every one knew, too, that he was the most determined Nationalist in the entire country, and that Jefferson and the Republican Party had no more unyielding enemy than the Chief Justice. And he had shown by his management of the Supreme Court and by his opinion in Marbury vs. Madison, how powerful that tribunal could be made. The downfall of Samuel Chase was a matter of small importance compared with the removal of John Marshall.

"They hate Marshall, Paterson, etc. worse than they hate Chase because they are men of better character," asserted Judge Jeremiah Smith of New Hampshire. "To be safe in these times good men must not only resign their offices but they must resign their good names… They will be obnoxious as long as they retain either. If they will neither die nor resign they give Mr J the trouble of correcting the procedure… Tell me what the judges say – are they frightened?" he anxiously inquired of Plumer.⁴⁴² Frightened they were – and very badly frightened. Even John Marshall, hitherto imperturbable and dauntless, was shaken.⁴⁴³

In addition to his "heretical" opinion in Marbury vs. Madison, Marshall had given the Republicans, and Jefferson especially, another cause for complaint. A year after the decision of that case, he had again gone out of his way to announce from the Supreme Bench the fallacy of Jefferson's Constitutional views and the soundness of the Nationalist theory. During the February term of the Supreme Court for the year 1804, that tribunal, in the case of the United States vs. Fisher,⁴⁴⁴ was called upon to decide whether the United States was a preferred creditor of an insolvent, under the Bankruptcy Act of 1800, which Marshall had helped to draw.⁴⁴⁵ Among other objections, it was suggested by counsel for Fisher, the insolvent, that the Bankruptcy Law was unconstitutional and that the priority which that act gave the Nation over other creditors of the bankrupt would prevent the States from making similar laws for their own protection.

But, said Marshall, this is "the necessary consequence of the supremacy of the laws of the United States on all subjects to which the legislative power of the United States extends… The Constitution did not prohibit Congress" from enacting a bankruptcy law and giving the Nation preference as a creditor. On the contrary, Congress was expressly authorized "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to carry into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the National Government." To say that "no law was authorized which was not indispensably necessary … would produce endless difficulties… Congress must possess the choice of means and must be empowered to use any means which are, in fact, conducive to the exercise of a power granted by the Constitution."

This was an emphatic denial of Jefferson's famous opinion on the power of Congress to charter a bank, and an outright assertion of the views of Hamilton on that celebrated question.⁴⁴⁶ The case could have been decided without such an expression from the court, but it presented an opportunity for a judicial statement of liberal construction which might not soon come again,⁴⁴⁷ and Marshall availed himself of it.

For two years no part of the Republican plans against the Judiciary had miscarried. Close upon the very day when John Breckenridge in the Senate had moved to repeal the National Judiciary Act of 1801, a petition signed by the enraged Republicans of Alleghany County, Pennsylvania, had been sent to the Legislature of that State, demanding the impeachment of Alexander Addison; and almost simultaneously with the passage of the Judiciary Repeal Act of Congress, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives transmitted to the State Senate articles charging the able but arrogant Federalist judge with high crimes and misdemeanors.

Addison's trial speedily followed; and while the evidence against him, viewed through the perspective of history, seems trivial, the Republican Pennsylvania Senate pronounced judgment against him and deposed him from the bench. With notable ability, Addison conducted his own defense. He made a powerful speech which is a classic of conservative philosophy.⁴⁴⁸ But his argument was unavailing. The Republican theory, that a judge might be deposed from office for any conduct or opinion of which the Legislature disapproved, was ruthlessly carried out.⁴⁴⁹

Almost as soon as Congress convened after the overthrow of the obnoxious Pennsylvania Federalist judge, the Republicans in the National House, upon representations from Jefferson, took steps to impeach John Pickering, Judge of the United States Court for the District of New Hampshire.⁴⁵⁰ This judge had been hopelessly insane for at least three years and, as one result of his mental and nervous malady, had become an incurable drunkard.⁴⁵¹ In this condition he had refused to hear witnesses for the Government in the case of the ship Eliza, seized for violation of the revenue laws. He peremptorily ordered the vessel returned to its captain, and finally declined to allow an appeal from his decree. All this had been done with ravings, cursings, and crazed incoherences.⁴⁵²

That he was wholly incapacitated for office and unable to perform any act requiring intelligence was conceded by all. But the Constitution provided no method of removing an officer who had become insane.⁴⁵³ This defect, however, gave the Republicans an ideal opportunity to put into practice their theory that impeachment was unrestricted and might be applied to any officer whom, for any reason, two thirds of the Senate deemed undesirable. "If the facts of his denying an appeal & of his intoxication, as stated in the impeachment, are proven, that will be sufficient cause for removal without further enquiry," asserted Jefferson when assured that Pickering was insane, and when asked "whether insanity was good cause for impeachment & removal from office."⁴⁵⁴

The demented judge did not, of course, appear at his trial. Instead, a petition by his son was presented, alleging the madness of his father, and praying that evidence to that effect be received by the Senate.⁴⁵⁵ This plea was stoutly resisted, and for two days the question was debated. "The most persevering and determined opposition is made against having evidence and counsel to prove the man insane," records John Quincy Adams, "only from the fear, that if insanity should be proved, he cannot be convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors by acts of decisive madness."⁴⁵⁶ Finally the determined Republicans proceeded to the trial of the insane judge for high crimes and misdemeanors, evidence of his dethroned reason to be received "in mitigation."⁴⁵⁷ In immense disgust the House managers withdrew, because "the Senate had determined to hear evidence" that the accused person was insane. Before they returned, they publicly denounced the Senators for their leniency; and thus Republican discipline was restored.⁴⁵⁸

Jefferson was impatient. "It will take two years to try this impeachment," he complained to Senator Plumer. "The Constitution ought to be altered," he continued, "so that the President should be authorized to remove a Judge from office, on the address of the two Houses."⁴⁵⁹ But the exasperated Republicans hastened the proceedings; and the trial did not consume two weeks all told.

If an insane man should be condemned, "it will not hereafter be necessary," declared Senator Samuel Smith of Maryland, "that a man should be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors," the commission of which was the only Constitutional ground for impeachment. Senator Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey denounced the whole proceeding as "a mere mockery of a trial."⁴⁶⁰ Senator John Quincy Adams, in the flurry of debate, asserted that he should "speak until [his] mouth was stopped by force."⁴⁶¹ Senator Nicholas of Virginia shouted "Order! order! order!" when Samuel White of Delaware was speaking. So furious became the altercation that a duel seemed possible.⁴⁶² No delay was permitted and, on March 12, 1804, the demented Pickering was, by a strictly partisan vote of 19 to 7,⁴⁶³ adjudged guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

An incident happened which was prophetic of a decline in the marvelous party discipline that had kept the Republicans in Senate and House in solid support of the plans of the leaders. Three Republican Senators left the Chamber in order to avoid the balloting.⁴⁶⁴ They would not adjudge an insane man to be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, but they were not yet independent enough to vote against their party.⁴⁶⁵ This, however, did not alarm the Republican managers. They instantly struck the next blow upon which they had determined more than two years before. Within an hour after John Pickering was convicted the House voted to impeach Samuel Chase.

Marshall's irascible associate on the Supreme Bench had given the Republicans a new and serious cause for hostilities against him. In less than two months after Marshall had delivered the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court in Marbury vs. Madison, Justice Chase, in charging the grand jury at Baltimore, denounced Republican principles and mercilessly assailed Republican acts and purposes.

This judicial critic of democracy told the grand jury that "the bulk of mankind are governed by their passions, and not by reason… The late alteration of the federal judiciary … and the recent change in our state constitution, by the establishing of universal suffrage, … will … take away all security for property and personal liberty … and our republican constitution will sink into a mobocracy, the worst of all popular governments."

Chase condemned "the modern doctrines by our late reformers, that all men, in a state of society, are entitled to enjoy equal liberty and equal rights, [which] have brought this mighty mischief upon us"; – a mischief which he feared "will rapidly progress, until peace and order, freedom and property, shall be destroyed… Will justice be impartially administered by judges dependent on the legislature for their … suport? Will liberty or property be protected or secured, by laws made by representatives chosen by electors, who have no property in, or a common interest with, or attachment to, the community?"⁴⁶⁶

Burning with anger, a young Republican member of the Maryland Legislature, John Montgomery, who had listened to this judicial tirade, forthwith savagely denounced Chase in the Baltimore American.⁴⁶⁷ He demanded that the Justice be impeached and removed from the bench.⁴⁶⁸ Montgomery hastened to send to the President⁴⁶⁹ a copy of the paper.

Jefferson promptly wrote Nicholson: "Ought this seditious and official attack on the principles of our Constitution, and on the proceedings of a State, go unpunished? And, to whom so pointedly as yourself will the public look for the necessary measures?"

But Jefferson was not willing to appear openly. With that uncanny power of divining political currents to which coarser or simpler minds were oblivious, he was conscious of the uneasiness of Northern Republicans over ruthless impeachment and decided not to become personally responsible. "For myself," he cautioned Nicholson, "it is better that I should not interfere."⁴⁷⁰

Upon the advice of Nathaniel Macon,⁴⁷¹ Republican Speaker of the House, Nicholson concluded that it would be more prudent for another to take the lead. It was well understood that he was to have Chase's place on the Supreme Bench,⁴⁷² and this fact would put him at a disadvantage if he became the central figure in the fight against the aged Justice. The procurement of the impeachment was, therefore, placed in the eager hands of John Randolph, that "unusual Phenomenon," as John Adams called him,⁴⁷³ whose lust for conspicuous leadership was insatiable.

The Republican managers had carefully moulded public opinion into the belief that Chase was guilty of some monstrous crime. Months before articles of impeachment were presented to the House, ex parte statements against him were collected, published in pamphlet form, and scattered throughout the country. To assure wider publicity all this "evidence" was printed in the Republican organ at Washington. The accused Justice had, therefore, been tried and convicted by the people before the charges against him were even offered in the House.⁴⁷⁴

This preparation of the popular mind accomplished, Chase was finally impeached. Eight articles setting forth the Republican accusations were laid before the Senate. Chase was accused of everything of which anybody had complained since his appointment to the Supreme Bench. His conduct at the trials of Fries and Callender was set forth with tedious particularity: in Delaware he had stooped "to the level of an informer"; his charge to the grand jury at Baltimore was an "intemperate and inflamatory political harangue"; he had prostituted his "high judicial character … to the low purpose of an electioneering partizan"; his purpose was "to excite … odium … against the government."⁴⁷⁵

This curious scramble of fault-finding, which was to turn out so fatally for the prosecution, was the work of Randolph. When the conglomerate indictment was drawn, no one, except perhaps Jefferson, had the faintest idea that the Republican plan would miscarry; Randolph's multifarious charges pleased those in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland who had first made them; they were so drawn as to lay a foundation for the assault which was to follow immediately. "These articles," wrote John Quincy Adams, "contained in themselves a virtual impeachment not only of Mr. Chase, but of all the Judges of the Supreme Court from the first establishment of the national judiciary."⁴⁷⁶

In an extended and carefully prepared speech, Senator Giles, who had drawn the rules governing the conduct of the trial in the Senate, announced the Republican view of impeachment which, he said, "is nothing more than an enquiry, by the two Houses of Congress, whether the office of any public man might not be better filled by another." Adams was convinced that "this is undoubtedly the source and object of Mr. Chase's impeachment, and on the same principle any officer may easily be removed at any time."⁴⁷⁷

From the time the House took action against Chase, the Federalists were in despair. "I think the Judge will be removed from Office," was Senator Plumer's opinion.⁴⁷⁸ "The event of the impeachment is already determined," wrote Bayard before the trial began.⁴⁷⁹ Pickering was certain that Chase would be condemned – so would any man that the House might impeach; such "measures … are made questions of party, and therefore at all events to be carried into effect according to the wishes of the prime mover [Jefferson]."⁴⁸⁰

As the day of the arraignment of the impeached Justice approached, his friends were not comforted by their estimate of the public temper. "Our public … will be as tame as Mr. Randolph can desire," lamented Ames. "You may broil Judge Chase and eat him, or eat him raw; it shall stir up less anger or pity, than the Six Nations would show, if Cornplanter or Red Jacket were refused a belt of wampum."⁴⁸¹

When finally Chase appeared before the bar of the Senate, he begged that the trial should be postponed until next session, in order that he might have time to prepare his defense. His appeal fell on remorseless ears; the Republicans gave him only a month. But this scant four weeks proved fatal to their purpose. Jefferson's wise adjustment of the greatest financial scandal in American history⁴⁸² came before the House during this interval; and fearless, honest, but impolitic John Randolph attacked the Administration's compromise of the Yazoo fraud with a ferocity all but insane in its violence. Literally screaming with rage, he assailed Jefferson's Postmaster-General who was lobbying on the floor of the House for the passage of the President's Yazoo plan, and delivered continuous philippics against that polluted transaction out of which later came the third of John Marshall's most notable opinions.⁴⁸³

In this frame of mind, nervously exhausted, physically overwrought and troubled, the most brilliant and effective Congressional partisan leader of our early history came to the trial. Moreover, Randolph had broken with the Administration and challenged Jefferson's hitherto undisputed partisan autocracy. This was the first public manifestation of that schism in the Republican Party which was never entirely healed.

Such was the situation on the 4th of February, 1805, when the Senate convened to hear and determine the case of Samuel Chase, impeached by the House for high crimes and misdemeanors, to settle by the judgment it should render the fate of John Marshall as Chief Justice of the United States, and to fix forever the place of the National Judiciary in the scheme of American government.

"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! – All persons are commanded to keep silence on pain of imprisonment, while the grand inquest of the nation is exhibiting to the Senate of the United States, sitting as a Court of Impeachments, articles of impeachment against Samuel Chase, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States."⁴⁸⁴

So cried the Sergeant-at-Arms of the National Senate when, in the Chase trial, John Marshall, the Supreme Court, and the whole National Judiciary were called to judgment by Thomas Jefferson, on the bleak winter day in dismal, scattered, and quarreling Washington. An audience crowded the Senate Chamber almost to the point of suffocation. There were present not only the members of Senate and House, the officers of the Executive departments, and the men and women of the Capital's limited society, but also scores of eminent persons from distant parts of the country.⁴⁸⁵

LETTER TO SAMUEL CHASE (Facsimile)

Among the spectators were John Marshall and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, thoroughly conscious that they, and the institution of which they were the highest representatives, were on trial almost as much as their imprudent, rough, and outspoken fellow member of the Bench. It is not improbable that they were helping to direct the defense of Chase,⁴⁸⁶ in which, as officials, they were personally interested, and in which, too, all their convictions as citizens and jurists were involved.

Marshall, aroused, angered, and frightened by the articles of the impeachment, had written his brother a year before the Chase trial that they are "sufficient to alarm the friends of a pure, and, of course, an independent Judiciary, if, among those who rule our land there be any of that description."⁴⁸⁷ At the beginning of the proceedings Chase had asked Marshall, who was then in Richmond, to write an account of what occurred at the trial of Callender, and Marshall promptly responded: "I instantly applied to my brother⁴⁸⁸ & to Mr. Wickham⁴⁸⁹ to state their recollection of the circumstances under which Colo. Taylors testimony was rejected.⁴⁹⁰ They both declared that they remembred them very imperfectly but that they woud endeavor to recollect what passed & commit it to writing. I shall bring it with me to Washington in february." Marshall also promised to bring other documents.

"Admitting it to be true," continues Marshall, "that on legal principles Colo. Taylors testimony was admissible, it certainly constitutes a very extraordinary ground for an impeachment. According to the antient doctrine a jury finding a verdict against the law of the case was liable to an attaint; & the amount of the present doctrine seems to be that a Judge giving a legal opinion contrary to the opinion of the legislature is liable to impeachment.

"As, for convenience & humanity the old doctrine of attaint has yielded to the silent, moderate but not less operative influence of new trials, I think the modern doctrine of impeachment should yield to an appellate jurisdiction in the legislature. A reversal of those legal opinions deemed unsound by the legislature would certainly better comport with the mildness of our character than [would] a removal of the Judge who has rendered them unknowing of his fault.

"The other charges except the 1st & 4th which I suppose to be altogether unfounded, seem still less to furnish cause for impeachment. But the little finger of [blotted out – probably "democracy"] is heavier than the loins of – .⁴⁹¹

"Farewell – With much respect and esteem…

"J. Marshall."⁴⁹²

Marshall thus suggested the most radical method for correcting judicial decisions ever advanced, before or since, by any man of the first class. Appeals from the Supreme Court to Congress! Senators and Representatives to be the final judges of any judicial decision with which a majority of the House was dissatisfied! Had we not the evidence of Marshall's signature to a letter written in his well-known hand, it could not be credited that he ever entertained such sentiments. They were in direct contradiction to his reasoning in Marbury vs. Madison, utterly destructive of the Federalist philosophy of judicial control of legislation.

The explanation is that Marshall was seriously alarmed. By his own pen he reveals to us his state of mind before and on that dismal February day when he beheld Samuel Chase arraigned at the bar of the Senate of the United States. During the trial Marshall's bearing as a witness⁴⁹³ again exhibited his trepidation. And, as we have seen, he had good cause for sharp anxiety.⁴⁹⁴

The avowed Republican purpose to remove him and his Federalist associates from the Supreme Bench, the settled and well-known intention of Jefferson to appoint Spencer Roane as Chief Justice when Marshall was ousted, and the certainty that this would be fatal to the execution of those fundamental principles of government to which Marshall was so passionately devoted – these important considerations fully warranted the apprehension which the Chief Justice felt and now displayed.

Had he been indifferent to the peril that confronted him and the whole National Judiciary, he would have exhibited a woeful lack of sense and feeling. He was more than justified in resorting to any honorable expedient to save the great office he held from occupancy by a resolute and resourceful foe of those Constitutional theories, the application of which, Marshall firmly believed, was indispensable to the sound development of the American Nation.

The arrangements for the trial were as dramatic as the event itself was momentous.⁴⁹⁵ The scenes of the impeachment prosecution of Warren Hastings were still vivid in the minds of all, and in imitation of that spectacle, the Senate Chamber was now bedecked with impressive splendor. It was aglow with theatrical color, and the placing of the various seats was as if a tragic play were to be performed.

To the right and left of the President's chair were two rows of benches with desks, the whole covered with crimson cloth. Here sat the thirty-four Senators of the United States. Three rows of benches, arranged in tiers, extended from the wall toward the center of the room; these were covered with green cloth and were occupied by the members of the House of Representatives. Upon their right an enclosure had been constructed, and in it were the members of Jefferson's Cabinet.

Beneath the permanent gallery to which the general public was admitted, a temporary gallery, supported by pillars, ran along the wall, and faced the crimson-covered places of the Senators. At either end of it were boxes. Comfortable seats had been provided in this enclosure; and these were covered with green cloth, which also was draped over the balustrade.

This sub-gallery and the boxes were filled with ladies dressed in the height of fashion. A passageway was left from the President's chair to the doorway. On either side of this aisle were two stalls covered with blue cloth, as were also the chairs within them. They were occupied by the managers of the House of Representatives and by the lawyers who conducted the defense.⁴⁹⁶

A short, slender, elegantly formed man, with pallid face and steady black eyes, presided over this Senatorial Court. He was carefully dressed, and his manners and deportment were meticulously correct. Aaron Burr, fresh from his duel with Hamilton, and under indictment in two States, had resumed his duties as Vice-President. Nothing in the bearing of this playwright character indicated in the smallest degree that anything out of the ordinary had happened to him. The circumstance of his presence, however, dismayed even the most liberal of the New England Federalists. "We are indeed fallen on evil times," wrote Senator Plumer. "The high office of President is filled by an infidel, that of Vice-President by a murderer."⁴⁹⁷

For the first time since the Republican victory of 1800, which, but for his skill, courage, and energy in New York, would not have been achieved,⁴⁹⁸ Burr now found himself in favor with the Administration and the Republican chieftains.⁴⁹⁹ Jefferson determined that Aaron Burr must be captured – at least conciliated. He could not be displaced as the presiding officer at the Chase impeachment trial; his rulings would be influential, perhaps decisive; the personal friendship and admiration of several Senators for him were well known; the emergency of the Republican Party was acute. Chase must be convicted at all hazards; and while nobody but Jefferson then doubted that this would be the result, no chances were to be taken, no precaution overlooked.