American Judiciary, Part 8: The Impeachment of Samuel Chase

Samuel Chase is the only Supreme Court Justice in our nation’s history to be impeached and that occurred during a political tussle over the independence and power of the judiciary between President Thomas Jefferson and Chief Justice John Marshall. In March 1804, the House of Representatives, in a party line vote, approved eight charges of impeachment against Chase. The problem was that the Constitution states that civil officers like Supreme Court justices may only be removed for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” and Chase was not charged with any of these. But that was just the point; the Chase trial was part of a larger Democratic-Republican plan to reduce the power and independence of the judiciary.