But
whatever it may have been intended to accomplish, it is obvious that
the vague, general, and abstract form of the resolution is in perfect
keeping with those other departures from first principles and settled
improvements in jurisprudence so properly the boast of free countries
in modern times. And it is not too much to say of the whole of these
proceedings that if they shall be approved and sustained by an
intelligent people, then will that great contest with arbitrary power
which had established in statutes, in bills of rights, in sacred
charters, and in constitutions of government the right of every citizen
to a notice before trial, to a hearing before conviction, and to an
impartial tribunal for deciding on the charge have been waged in vain.
If the resolution had been left in its original form it is not to be
presumed that it could ever have received the assent of a majority
of the Senate, for the acts therein specified as violations of the
Constitution and laws were clearly within the limits of the Executive
authority. They are the "dismissing the late Secretary of the Treasury
because he would not, contrary to his sense of his own duty, remove the
money of the United States in deposit with the Bank of the United States
and its branches in conformity with the President's opinion, and
appointing his successor to effect such removal, which has been done.
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