WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1853
· 441
had all the able legal counsel in the United States to argue the case before them. It is the case in both branches of the National Legislature, that counsel are received and the cases tried pro and con in the case of impeachment, which are always ex parte; and the body acts as an inquest, and a special trial takes place, and no conclusions ever can be arrived at, because days are consumed just by the presentation of counsel and elaborate arguments. The cases here in this Senate, and if I understand it, in the House of Representatives also, are to be prepared for investigation in committees, an.d presented in the body where the trial in chief takes place. If the gentleman in whose behalf this resolution has been introduced was the only human being mistaken in a case, the facts of which he must have misunderstood, his judgment cer- tainly must have been very defective, and I think that if the rejection of this resolution would operate to rebuke gentlemen under similar circumstances, it ought to be rejected. I call for the yeas and nays. [Mr. Brodhead spoke.] The honorable Senator from Pennsylvania misapprehends me entirely. I did not state that it was a mere question of fact which was to be tried by the committee. It was a matter of law, as I understood it, and it was referred to a most select and judicious committee of gentlemen learned in the law, perhaps quite as much so as the gentleman who claimed the seat, or as the counsel he introduced before the committee, and equally competent to arrive at a just decision. It was a matter of principle that they could investigate as well as the fact. I do not think any evidence was introduced to sustain the claim of the applicant for the seat. I never heard there were any facts in the case but those which were admitted by all parties, and it was strictly a matter of constitu- tional law which they had to decide. In arriving at a conclusion, they had as many lights before the committee as could be furnished by the most able counsel, and were just as competent to decide the case correctly as after all the elaborate arguments of the counsel upon the subject. I cannot suppose that it was because it was a principle contended for by the gentleman, and that principle was in itself absurd, without any reason or founda- tion, we should vote an appropriation for his benefit, if he mis- apprehended a principle of law; for he was a learned jurist himself, and ought to have understood it. If his anxiety extended
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