De Lolme, Cassius, and Publius on Impeachment

     With the current interest and yes, disinterest, in the topic of impeachment, I decided to open the pages of three books on Constitutions in my library.  I wanted to see what our forefathers might have been thinking regarding impeachment when the Constitution of the United States was being discussed in 1787 and 1788.

     The Constitution of England by J. L. De Lolme was first published in Amsterdam in French in 1771.  De Lolme was born in Geneva, but had to emigrate to England because one of his political writings upset the leaders of Geneva.  An enlarged English edition of his book was first published in London in 1775, with new editions in 1777, 1781, 1784, 1800 and several more afterwards.  Elbridge Gerry, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson had copies of De Lolme's book on the Constituion.  Elbridge Gerry was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, but refused to sign the United States Constitution because it did not contain a Bill of Rights.

     The following paragraphs were extracted from the 1800 edition of The Constitution of England.  The words in each paragraph were identical to those printed in the 1777, 1781, and 1784 editions.

     ... But who shall be the judges to decide in such a cause?  What tribunal will flatter itself that it can give an impartial decision, when it shall see, appearing at its bar, the government itself is the accused, and the representatives of the people are the accusers?
     It is before the house of peers that the law has directed the commons to carry their accusation; that is, before judges, whose dignity, on one hand, renders them independent, and who, on the other, have a great honour to support in that awful function, where they have all the nation for spectators of their conduct.
     When the impeachment is brought to the lords, they commonly order the person accused to be imprisoned.  On the day appointed, the deputies of the house of commons, with the person impeached, make their appearance: the impeachment is read in his presence; counsel are allowed him, as well as time to prepare for his defence; and at the expiration of this term, the trial goes on from day to day, with open doors, and every thing is communicated in print to the public.
     But whatever advantage the law grants to the person impeached for his justification, it is from the intrinsic merits of his conduct that he must draw his arguments and proofs.  It would be of no service to him, in order to justify a criminal conduct, to allege the commands of the sovereign; or, pleading guilty, to produce the royal pardon*.  It is against the administration itself that the impeachment is carried on; it should therefore by no means interfere: the king can neither stop not suspend its course, but is forced to behold, as an inactive spectator, the discovery of the share which he himself have had in the illegal proceedings of his servants, and to hear his own sentence in the condemnation of his ministers.
     An admirable expedient!  which, by removing and punishing corrupt ministers, affords the immediate remedy for the evils of the state, and strongly marks out the bounds within which power ought to be confined: which takes away the scandal of guilt and authority united, and calms the people by a great and awful act of justice: an expedient, in this respect, so highly useful, that it is to the want of the like that Machiavel attributes the ruin of his republic (92-94)....

*In a note De Lolme recalled that the Earl of Danby pleaded the king's pardon during his impeachment in 1678.  It caused such a ruckus that parliament was dissolved.  A law was since  enacted which said "that no pardon under the great seal can be pleaded in bar to an impeachment by the house of commons."

     In 1888 Paul Leicester Ford's Historical Printing Club published a collection of Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States Published During its Discussion by the People 1787-1788.  The reception the book received proved that the writings were only neglected because they were unknown.  In 1892, his Historical Printing Club published Essays on the Constitution of the United States Published During its Discussion by the People 1787-1788.  Ford reasoned that since the Federalist made the essays that were published in the newspapers of New York City popular, his book would make the essays that were published in the newspapers of other cities popular as well.

     One of the essays in Ford's book was written by a lawyer and politician who wrote under the pseudonym of Cassius.


CASSIUS

THE MASSACHUSETTS GAZETTE

Friday, December 21, 1787

For the Massachusetts Gazette.

To the Inhabitants of this State.

(Continued from our last)

     Section 1 of article II. further provides, That the president shall, previous to his entering upon the duties of his office, take the following oath or affirmation: I do solemnly swear ( or affirm) That I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States. Thus we see that instead of the president's being vested with all the powers of a monarch, as has been asserted, that he is under the immediate controul of the constitution, which if he should presume to deviate from, he would be immediately arrested in his career and summoned to answer for his conduct before a federal court, where strict justice and equity would undoubtedly preside....
     Section 4, of article II. says, The president, vice-president, and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of reason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.––Thus we see that no office, however exalted, can protect the miscreant, who dares invade the liberties of his country, or countenance in his crimes the impious villain who sacrilegiously attempts to trample upon the rights of freemen.
     Who will be absurd enough to affirm, that the section alluded to, does not sufficiently prove that the federal convention have formed a government which provides that we shall be ruled by laws and not men? No, surely but an anti-federalist (38,39)....

     Cassius, it turns out, was James Sullivan (1744-1808).  Sullivan shared John Hancock's political views, and Hancock rewarded him  by appointing him the Attorney General of Massachusetts in 1790.  Sullivan would later succeed Hancock as Governor.  On a side note, Elbridge Gerry unsuccessfully ran against both Hancock and Sullivan, but finally became governor in 1810.

     
     The Federalist was first published in 1788 in New York by J. and A. McLean.  It is No. 519 of Everyman's Library series, was first published in the series in 1911, and was reprinted twelve times.  My copy was reprinted in 1917.  The Federalist contains 85 essays, most of which first appeared in the newspapers of New York City.   Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison all wrote under the pseudonym Publius, and sought to persuade the people of the State of New York to adopt the Constitution.  Alexander Hamilton was the author of Federalist No. LXV.

PUBLIUS

From the New York Packet, Friday, March 7, 1788

THE FEDERALIST. No. LXV (Hamilton) 

To the People of the State of New York:

     The remaining powers which the plan of the convention allots to the Senate, in a distinct capacity, are comprised in their participation with the executive in the appointment to office, and in their judicial character as a court for the trial of impeachments. As in the business of appointments the executive will be the principal agent, the provisions relating to it will most properly be discussed in the examination of that department. We will, therefore, conclude this head with a view of the judicial character fo the Senate.
     A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions , and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.
     The delicacy and magnitude of a trust so deeply concerns the political reputation of every man engaged in the administration of public affairs, speak for themselves. The difficulty of placing it rightly, in a government resting entirely on the basis of periodical elections, will be as readily perceived, when it is considered that the most conspicuous characters in it will, from that circumstance, be too often the leaders or the tools of the most cunning or the most numerous faction, and on this account can hardly be expected to possess the requisite neutrality towards those whose conduct may be the subject of scrutiny.
     The convention, it appears, thought the Senate the most fit depositary of this important trust. Those who can best discern the intrinsic difficulty of the thing, will be least hasty in condemning that opinion, and will be most inclined to allow due weight to the arguments which may be supposed to have produced it (332,333)....

     On a side note, which is an end note as well, Alexander Hamilton cites De Lolme in The Federalist  LXX.

A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold

I read and reviewed this book over three years ago, but somehow never posted it to my Contemplations of MoiBibliomaniac blog until now....


This book was the May 2016 nonfiction pick for a local book club my wife and I belonged to. It was written by the mother of one of the Columbine High School shooters. I read this book in April 2016. Only four months earlier, right after the San Bernardino shooting, I had read Gone Boy, written by a father whose son was murdered in a school shooting in Massachusetts in 1992. That book was a page turner; but I found that I was unable, for the longest time, to write a review of the book. It was just too uncomfortable a subject for me. A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy, on the other hand, was a harder read, not because of the circumstances of the shooting, but because it seemed that Sue Klebold kept apologizing for her son's actions.

Sue Klebold bares her soul in documenting the before and after of the Columbine shooting. She divides the book into two parts, the first of which she is still in denial, and the second in which she begins to understand how her son became a killer. The other shooter, Eric Harris, wanted to kill people. While her son Dylan wanted to take his own life. Dylan's parents were unaware of his depressed state of mind. Both sets of parents were unaware of their sons' preparations for the shooting. What surprised me was that Eric had seen a psychiatrist and was on medication while both he and Dylan were attending a Diversion Program in lieu of jail after being arrested for theft 15 months prior to the shooting.

Looking back, Sue Klebold saw signs that her son was in trouble emotionally. But she did not notice them at the time. Another thing that somehow stayed below the radar was a school paper that her son wrote about a man dressed in black who kills the popular kids at school. The teacher did mention at a parent's conference that she was disturbed with the subject of the paper and referred it to the guidance counselor, but said the matter was under control. Sue Klebold asked her son to show her the paper, and he said he would that night. He didn't and the matter was forgotten. I mention this because bullying was a factor in the shooting. Sue Klebold believed that the arrest, the paper, and her son's mental state, when combined together, might have given cause for a threat assessment of her son by authorities.

There was a lively discussion of this book at our local book club. We came away with the opinion that it could have happened to any parent. But that every parent needs to be on the lookout for signs of mental or emotional problems of their children.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

If the Los Angeles Public Library were a living, breathing thing, then Susan Orlean, a staff writer at The New Yorker, has written a can't-put-it-down biography of its life and the people who worked there.  Interspersed throughout the book, beginning on the front pastedown, is the author's true-crime account of the library fire,  the disposition of the 700,000 books that were either wet or smoky or both, and the subsequent arson investigation into the cause of the fire, and its prime suspect Harry Peak.

With her pen, Susan Orlean seems to bring past city librarians back to life to tell their stories about the history and the  rebuilding of the Los Angeles Public Library.  She interviews library staff members, and we learn what they're doing at the library.  But most of all, we learn that they love being librarians.

I mentioned that the author begins her writing on the front pastedown with an account of the fire on April 29, 1986.  She has chapters but doesn't identify the chapters by title.  Instead, she uses the titles of books listed on library catalog cards to identify the subject matter of the chapter:

Timing is everything.  I read Chapter 25 a few weeks after The New York Times documented Donald Trump's ten-year billion-dollar losses in the real estate market.  So I had to chuckle when I read the title of the first book she uses to infer that part of the chapter is about the real estate market:

I like the book checkout information the author recorded on the library card that is displayed on the rear pastedown:

Ray Bradbury: author of Fahrenheit 451
Edith Gross: her mother
Austin Gillespie: her husband
 Her own name, Susan Orlean, with the date of the fire 4-29-86

Earlier, I mentioned something about the library being a living thing.  I'll close with the author's words as she roamed around the Los Angeles Public Library:

....The silence was more soothing than solemn.  A library is a good place to soften solitude; a place where you feel part of a conversation that has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years even when you're all alone.  The library is a whispering post.  You don't need to take a book off a shelf to know there is a voice inside that is waiting to speak to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen....

The Grammarian in the Bedroom, Or, A Whole New Dimension to the Elements of Style

I am still actively collecting early editions of The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.  And I still don't have a copy of the 1918 edition.   But I'm still looking. Here's what the cover of a 1918 edition looks like in case you ever find one for me:

And here is what  the cover of any edition of The Elements of Style is not supposed to look like:

Createspace Independent Publishing Platform has been publishing this book since 2015.  I have to tell you though: reading this book will not improve your sexual prowess in the bedroom.  The cover has nothing whatsoever to do with the contents of the book.  I did, however, verify that this book is a reprint of the 1918 edition of The Elements of Style.  And William Strunk Jr. was the author of this book.  But I believe he would turn in his grave if he got a peek of this cover.

This particular book has received six reviews on Amazon:

1.  Four Stars:

I bought this book as a reference book and it works just fine that way.  I found its "plot" predictable, its "mood" thoughtful, its "pace" steady, and its "characters" developed.  It lacks suspense.  But it does have STYLE.

3 people found this helpful

2.  Five Stars:

Well written and excellent exlplanations. (sic) 

3.  Five Stars:

The book looked new.  The price was right.

One person found this helpful 

4.  Five Stars:

Perfect!

One person found this helpful

5.  Five Stars:

Get this, sit down, read it.  No don't study it, just read it, all 50 pages in one sitting. 

4 people found this helpful 

Note: There are 55 pages in this book.

6.  Four Stars:

Informative. Dry. For scholarly individuals. Not sure I'd recommend this to anyone except for high school or early college students. You should definitely know what's in the book, but I'd rather stick to the internet because I think I'd find many more references and examples. The book is a bit limiting.

Two people found this helpful 

The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller by Carol Baxter

 

 I am slowly forming my second Sentimental Airman Collection.  So when I saw The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller listed in the February batch of Early Reviewer books on Library Thing, I requested it, won it, and received my copy in March.
     This book is about an Australian woman, Mrs Chubbie Miller, who meets a Royal Air Force Reservist, William "Bill" Newton Lancaster at a party in London in the late 1920s. He intends to be the first aviator to fly a light aircraft from Great Britain to Australia, but lacks the funds required for the trip.  Chubbie offers to help pay for the trip if she can fly as a passenger with him to Australia.  The trip is fraught with bad weather and mishaps, and another aviator becomes the first to complete the trip from Great Britain to Australia.  Chubbie, however, becomes the first woman to fly as a passenger from Great Britain to Australia.
     After spending a few months flying around in Australia, Chubbie and Bill decide to try their luck in America.  Chubbie learns to fly, and enters women's cross-country derby races, making a name for herself.
     The Great Depression happens and jobs are scarce.  Chubbie is hired to fly from Pittsburgh to Havana and back again.  The purpose of the her trip was to promote Pittsburgh as an air centre.  The weather deteriorates rapidly after Chubbie departs from Havana, and Chubbie never reaches Miami.  Search planes are sent out but no one can find her.  On the fourth day, everyone learns she is still alive.  Chubbie over-accounted for the strong winds of the storm that were pulling her off course.  Instead of running out of fuel over the Gulf, she ran out of fuel and landed in a remote marsh in Andros Island, Bahamas.
     In the last third of the book, Chubbie becomes involved in a love triangle in Miami.  While Bill is out of state looking for work, Chubbie has a romantic tryst with her ghostwriter, and then tells Bill of her ongoing affair in a letter.  Bill, still in love with Chubbie, rushes back to Miami and the ghostwriter dies that very night.  Bill either kills him or the ghostwriter commits suicide by gun.  The book now becomes a murder mystery with Bill on trial for murder and Chubbie as one of the witnesses.  And here is where I stop, because you will enjoy reading the true tale the author weaves of how the trial plays out.