Samuel Chase: In Defense of the Rule of Law and Against the Jeffersonians

Summary

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As the only US Supreme Court Justice to be impeached, Samuel Chase achieved a sort of instant fame, or instant infamy. During the 1800 election campaign, Chase made himself an easy target for Jeffersonian newspapers when he appeared to sympathize zealously with the prosecution of Jeffersonian editors and writers. Those who accuse Chase of being anti-Jeffersonian are correct, but there were, after all, some reasons for opposing the man from Monticello and his champions. There were two criminal trials over which Chase presided on circuit that did become matters that the House found impeachable offenses. With Jefferson's victory in 1800, Chase feared for the rule of law in general and the independence of the judiciary in particular. Over time, however, Chase's views on the requirements of the rule of law, the allocation of power between judge and jury, judicial review, and the supremacy of the federal government became accepted wisdom and part of what Ted White called the "American Judicial Tradition."

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Samuel Chase: In Defense of the Rule of Law and Against the Jeffersonians

INTRODUCTION

Samuel Chase is not exactly unknown. Indeed, as the only U.S. Supreme Court Justice to be impeached, he achieved a sort of instant fame, or instant infamy. He is, I think, fairly characterized as a "neglected Justice," however, because, in our exclusive focus on his impeachment, we tend to forget that he did possess considerable intelligence, virtue, legal ability, and energy that make him worth our study. His life is also something of an object lesson in how a judge's self- destructive tendencies can harm his reputation. As Richard Peters, his colleague on the Pennsylvania Circuit Court remarked, Chase had a singular instinct for tumult and appeared to have sought controversy whenever he could. "I never sat with him without pain," Peters remembered, "as he was forever getting into some intemperate and unnecessary squabble."1 Chase is remembered as a rabid Federalist partisan and a vehemently anti-Jeffersonian judge.2

I am not aware of any other Supreme Court Justice who apparently deprived his Court of a full complement of required personnel because he went out on the political hustings to give speeches in support of a presidential candidate he favored (John Adams)3 and against one he feared (Thomas Jefferson).4 During the 1800 election campaign, Chase made himself an easy target for Jeffersonian newspapers when he appeared to sympathize zealously with the prosecution of Jeffersonian editors and writers. Indeed, more than one historian has suggested that in the trial of one of these writers, the notorious John Thompson Callender, Chase actively sought to prevent "all creatures called democrats" from serving on the jury. This assertion, however, is dubious.5

To the victors belong the spoils of writing history, however, and the Jeffersonians and their sympathizers have monopolized the judgment of Chase. Even as recently as Bruce Ackerman's 2005 book on the founding period, Chase continues to be painted as a hyperpartisan, and my own feeble efforts to correct this view are rather cavalierly dismissed.6 Raoul Berg...

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