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Impeachment of Justice Chase by Steve Payne
 Author
says: what if the disgraced Vice President Aaron Burr was actually an
unrecognised hero that had safeguarded liberty at a dangerous time for the
Republic? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not
necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
In 1805: on March 1st,
in the first impeachment of a Justice of the Supreme Court, the Jeffersonian
Republicans-controlled Senate voted to convict Samuel Chase of charges of
political bias that had resulted in the treatment of defendants and their
counsel in a blatantly unfair manner.
The outcome represented a decisive setback for the
Federalist Party because Chase was a well-known firebrand states-righter and
revolutionary. At a stroke, Thomas Jefferson had seized control of the
judiciary from the Federalists and also prevented Chase from running for
President in 1808.
"Ought the seditious and official
attack [by Chase] on the principles of our Constitution . . .to go
unpunished?" ~ JeffersonPerhaps more significantly, conviction of an
original signatory of the declaration of independence symbolised the final
defeat of the sense of brotherhood amongst the remaining founding fathers.
Infighting had been begun inside Washington's cabinet, developed during the
elections of 1796 and 1800 and climaxed dramatically when Vice President
Aaron Burr and former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton had shot
each other dead in a duel at Weehawken.
The beneficiary was unquestionably Jefferson, who could now enter his
second term without equal, or indeed the inconvenience of an independent
judiciary.
Author
says please note that content was substantially repurposed from the
source article on
Wikipedia.
To view guest historian's comments on this post please visit the
Today in Alternate History web site.
Other Contemporary Stories
Steve Payne Editor of
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Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit
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