Part 102

The fourth article was read by the Secretary, as follows:

ART. 4. That the conduct of the said Samuel Chase was marked, during the whole course of the said trial, by manifest injustice, partiality, and intemperance; viz:

1. In compelling the prisoner’s counsel to reduce to writing, and submit to the inspection of the Court, for their admission or rejection, all questions which the said counsel meant to propound to the above-named John Taylor, the witness:

2. In refusing to postpone the trial, although an affidavit was regularly filed, stating the absence of material witnesses on behalf of the accused; and although it was manifest, that, with the utmost diligence, the attendance of such witnesses could not have been procured at that term:

3. In the use of unusual, rude, and contemptuous expressions towards the prisoner’s counsel; and in falsely insinuating that they wished to excite the public fears and indignation, and to produce that insubordination to law to which the conduct of the judge did, at the same time, manifestly tend:

4. In repeated and vexatious interruptions of the said counsel, on the part of the said judge, which at length induced them to abandon their cause and their client, who was thereupon convicted and condemned to fine and imprisonment:

5. In an indecent solicitude manifested by the said Samuel Chase for the conviction of the accused, unbecoming even a public prosecutor, but highly disgraceful to the character of a judge, as it was subversive of justice.

Those who pronounced guilty on this article, are:

Messrs. Anderson, Breckenridge, Brown, Cocke, Condit, Ellery, Franklin, Giles, Howland, Jackson, Logan, Maclay, Moore, Smith of Maryland, Stone, Sumter, Worthington, and Wright--18.

Those who pronounced not guilty, are:

Messrs. Adams, Baldwin, Bayard, Bradley, Dayton, Gaillard, Hillhouse, Mitchill, Olcott, Pickering, Plumer, Smith of New York, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Vermont, Tracy, and White--16.

The fifth article was read by the Secretary, as follows:

ART. 5. And whereas it is provided by the act of Congress, passed on the 24th day of September, 1789, entitled “An act to establish the judicial courts of the United States,” that for any crime or offence against the United States, the offender may be arrested, imprisoned, or bailed, agreeably to the usual mode of process in the State, where such offender may be found: and whereas it is provided by the laws of Virginia, that upon presentment by any grand jury of an offence not capital, the Court shall order the clerk to issue a summons against the person or persons offending, to appear and answer such presentment at the next court; yet the said Samuel Chase did, at the court aforesaid, award a capias against the body of the said James Thompson Callender, indicted for an offence not capital, whereupon the said Callender was arrested and committed to close custody, contrary to law in that case made and provided.

All the members pronounced not guilty on this article.

The sixth article was read by the Secretary, as follows:

ART. 6. And whereas it is provided by the 34th section of the aforesaid act, entitled “An act to establish the judicial courts of the United States,” that the laws of the several States, except where the constitution, treaties, or statutes of the United States shall otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as the rules of decision in trials at common law, in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply; and whereas by the laws of Virginia it is provided, that in cases not capital, the offender shall not be held to answer any presentment of a grand jury until the court next succeeding that during which such presentment shall have been made, yet the said Samuel Chase, with intent to oppress and procure the conviction of the said James Thompson Callender, did, at the court aforesaid, rule and adjudge the said Callender to trial during the term at which he, the said Callender, was presented and indicted, contrary to law in that case made and provided.

Those who pronounced guilty on this article, are:

Messrs. Breckenridge, Cocke, Howland, and Maclay--4.

Those who pronounced not guilty, are:

Messrs. Adams, Anderson, Baldwin, Bayard, Bradley, Brown, Condit, Dayton, Ellery, Franklin, Gaillard, Giles, Hillhouse, Jackson, Logan, Mitchill, Moore, Olcott, Pickering, Plumer, Smith of Maryland, Smith of New York, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Vermont, Stone, Sumter, Tracy, White, Worthington, and Wright--30.

The seventh article was read by the Secretary, as follows:

ART. 7. That at a circuit court of the United States, for the district of Delaware, held at Newcastle, in the month of June, one thousand eight hundred, whereat the said Samuel Chase presided--the said Samuel Chase, disregarding the duties of his office, did descend from the dignity of a judge and stoop to the level of an informer, by refusing to discharge the grand jury, although entreated by several of the said jury so to do, and after the said grand jury had regularly declared, through their foreman, that they had found no bills of indictment, nor had any presentments to make, by observing to the said grand jury, that he, the said Samuel Chase, understood “that a highly seditious temper had manifested itself in the State of Delaware, among a certain class of people, particularly in Newcastle county, and more especially in the town of Wilmington, where lived a most seditious printer, unrestrained by any principle of virtue, and regardless of social order--that the name of this printer was”--but checking himself, as if sensible of the indecorum which he was committing, added, “that it might be assuming too much to mention the name of this person, but it becomes your duty, gentlemen, to inquire diligently into this matter,” and that with intention to procure the prosecution of the printer in question, the said Samuel Chase did, moreover, authoritatively enjoin on the District Attorney of the United States the necessity of procuring a file of the papers to which he alluded, (and which were understood to be those published under the title of “Mirror of the Times and General Advertiser,”) and by a strict examination of them to find some passage which might furnish the groundwork of a prosecution against the printer of the said paper; thereby degrading his high judicial functions, and tending to impair the public confidence in, and respect for, the tribunals of justice, so essential to the general welfare.

Those who pronounced guilty on this article, are:

Messrs. Breckenridge, Cocke, Franklin, Howland, Jackson, Maclay, Smith of Maryland, Stone, Sumter, and Wright--10.

Those who pronounced not guilty, are:

Messrs. Adams, Anderson, Baldwin, Bayard, Bradley, Brown, Condit, Dayton, Ellery, Gaillard, Giles, Hillhouse, Logan, Mitchill, Moore, Olcott, Pickering, Plumer, Smith of New York, Smith of Ohio, Smith of Vermont, Tracy, White, and Worthington--24.

The eighth article was read by the Secretary as follows:

ART. 8. And whereas mutual respect and confidence between the Government of the United States and those of the individual States, and between the people and those Governments, respectively, are highly conducive to that public harmony, without which there can be no public happiness, yet the said Samuel Chase, disregarding the duties and dignity of his judicial character, did, at a circuit court, for the district of Maryland, held at Baltimore, in the month of May, one thousand eight hundred and three, pervert his official right and duty to address the grand jury then and there assembled, on the matters coming within the province of the said jury, for the purpose of delivering to the said grand jury an intemperate and inflammatory political harangue, with intent to excite the fears and resentment of the said grand jury, and of the good people of Maryland, against their State government and constitution--a conduct highly censurable in any, but peculiarly indecent and unbecoming in a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States; and, moreover, that the said Samuel Chase, then and there, under pretence of exercising his judicial right to address the said grand jury, as aforesaid, did, in a manner highly unwarrantable, endeavor to excite the odium of the said grand jury, and of the good people of Maryland, against the Government of the United States, by delivering opinions, which, even if the judicial authority were competent to their expression, on a suitable occasion and in a proper manner, were at that time, and as delivered by him, highly indecent, extra-judicial, and tending to prostrate the high judicial character with which he was invested, to the low purpose of an electioneering partisan.