The act thus
condemned necessarily implies volition and design in the individual to
whom it is imputed, and, being unlawful in its character, the legal
conclusion is that it was prompted by improper motives and committed
with an unlawful intent. The charge is not of a mistake in the exercise
of supposed powers, but of the assumption of powers not conferred by
the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both, and nothing is
suggested to excuse or palliate the turpitude of the act. In the absence
of any such excuse or palliation there is only room for one inference,
and that is that the intent was unlawful and corrupt. Besides, the
resolution not only contains no mitigating suggestions, but, on the
contrary, it holds up the act complained of as justly obnoxious to
censure and reprobation, and thus as distinctly stamps it with impurity
of motive as if the strongest epithets had been used.
The President of the United States, therefore, has been by a majority of
his constitutional triers accused and found guilty of an impeachable
offense, but in no part of this proceeding have the directions of the
Constitution been observed.
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