Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson

The importance the framers of the Constitution attributed to the balance of powers among the three branches of our government is brilliantly illustrated here by Chief Justice Rehnquist ( The Supreme Court ). Clear expositions of historical and political premises, along with lively evocations of chief players and their milieus, animate the author's engrossing account of the Senate's 1805 impeachment trial and its acquittal of the choleric Supreme Court Justice Chase for his alleged attack on the Constitution during his concurrent term as a circuit court judge. The politically motivated impeachment trial of President Johnson in 1868--he was also acquitted--concerned his removal from office of Secretary of State Edwin Stanton without Senate approval, an alleged violation of the debatable Tenure of Office Act. While Chase's acquittal, writes Rehnquist, assured ``the independence of federal judges from congressional oversight'' of their judicial opinions, the repeal of the Tenure of Office Act by the Supreme Court in 1926 freed presidents to remove executive officers from their posts at will. Thus Rehnquist concludes from his present-day perspective that with the threat of congressional impeachment largely curtailed--except for criminal offenses--the chief executive is now directly answerable only to the electorate. Photos not seen by PW. (May)