It would challenge his discretion, erect sins of omission into positive offenses, and make inquest of his motives and purposes.

There has not been an occupant of the Executive Chair since the organization of the Government, who did not at some period in his career commit an act which in the judgment of his political opponents was "highly prejudicial to the public interest," and therefore if his opponents should happen to be in the majority they might impeach him, simply for disagreement upon an issue of expediency upon which men equally competent to judge might reasonable and conscientiously hold different opinions.

This was in effect the same position assumed by Mr.Thaddeus Stevens, that "in order to sustain impeachment under the Constitution it is not necessary to prove a crime as an indictable offense, or any act _malum in se_.

It is a purely _political_ proceeding." The counsel for the President dissented altogether from this definition of the grounds of Impeachment as given by the Managers.

Judge Curtis declared that "when the Constitution speaks of treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors, it refers to and includes only high criminal offenses against the United states, made so by some law of the United States existing when the acts complained of were done.