What Impeachment Power Does the House of Representatives Have

"The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall exist removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Blackmail, or other loftier Crimes and Misdemeanors."
— U.S. Constitution, Article Two, department 4

/tiles/non-drove/i/i_origins_impeach_stevens_2009_129_001crop.xml Collection of the U.S. Business firm of Representatives
Nearly this object Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, a Radical Republican, gave the last speech during Firm debate on articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson on March 2, 1868. Johnson became the first president impeached by the House, merely he was later acquitted by the Senate by one vote.

The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power to impeach an official, and it makes the Senate the sole court for impeachment trials. The power of impeachment is limited to removal from office just likewise provides a means by which a removed officeholder may be disqualified from holding future office. Fines and potential jail time for crimes committed while in office are left to civil courts.

Origins

Impeachment comes from British constitutional history. The process evolved from the 14th century equally a way for parliament to hold the king's ministers answerable for their public actions. Impeachment, every bit Alexander Hamilton of New York explained in Federalist 65, varies from civil or criminal courts in that it strictly involves the "misconduct of public men, or in other words from the corruption or violation of some public trust." Individual state constitutions had provided for impeachment for "maladministration" or "corruption" before the U.Due south. Constitution was written. And the founders, fearing the potential for abuse of executive power, considered impeachment so important that they made it part of the Constitution even before they divers the contours of the presidency.

Constitutional Framing

During the Federal Constitutional Convention, the framers addressed whether even to include impeachment trials in the Constitution, the venue and process for such trials, what crimes should warrant impeachment, and the likelihood of conviction. Rufus King of Massachusetts argued that having the legislative branch laissez passer judgment on the executive would undermine the separation of powers; better to let elections punish a President. "The Executive was to hold his place for a express term like the members of the Legislature," King said, and so "he would periodically be tried for his behaviour past his electors." Massachusetts's Elbridge Gerry, however, said impeachment was a way to go on the executive in check: "A skilful magistrate will not fright [impeachments]. A bad ane ought to be kept in fear of them."

/tiles/non-drove/i/i_origins_impeachment_lesliesbutler_2016_148_000-21.xml Collection of the U.Due south. House of Representatives
About this object The nation's first presidential impeachment riveted the state and dominated America's newspapers in 1868, with blow-by-blow illustrations of the events.

Some other event arose regarding whether Congress might lack the resolve to try and convict a sitting President. Presidents, some delegates observed, controlled executive appointments which ambitious Members of Congress might find desirable. Delegates to the Convention also remained undecided on the venue for impeachment trials. The Virginia Program, which set the calendar for the Convention, initially contemplated using the judicial branch. Over again, though, the founders chose to follow the British case, where the Business firm of Commons brought charges against officers and the House of Lords considered them at trial. Ultimately, the founders decided that during presidential impeachment trials, the Firm would manage the prosecution, while the Chief Justice would preside over the Senate during the trial.

The founders as well addressed what crimes constituted grounds for impeachment. Treason and bribery were obvious choices, simply George Stonemason of Virginia idea those crimes did non include a large number of punishable offenses against the country. James Madison of Virginia objected to using the term "maladministration" because it was too vague. Bricklayer so substituted "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" in add-on to treason and bribery. The term "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" was a technical term—again borrowed from British legal do—that denoted crimes by public officials against the authorities. Mason's revision was accepted without further debate. But subsequent experience demonstrated the revised phrase failed to clarify what constituted impeachable offenses.

/tiles/non-drove/i/i_origins_impeachment_watergatetapes_PA2019_12_0027.xml Drove of the U.S. House of Representatives
About this object In 1974, presidential impeachment was closely followed by the printing, the public, and the House itself.

The House's Role

The Business firm brings impeachment charges against federal officials equally part of its oversight and investigatory responsibilities. Individual Members of the Business firm tin innovate impeachment resolutions like ordinary bills, or the House could initiate proceedings past passing a resolution authorizing an inquiry. The Committee on the Judiciary ordinarily has jurisdiction over impeachments, but special committees investigated charges before the Judiciary Committee was created in 1813. The committee then chooses whether to pursue manufactures of impeachment against the accused official and report them to the full Business firm. If the articles are adopted (by unproblematic majority vote), the Firm appoints Members by resolution to manage the ensuing Senate trial on its behalf. These managers act as prosecutors in the Senate and are usually members of the Judiciary Committee. The number of managers has varied beyond impeachment trials just has traditionally been an odd number. The partisan composition of managers has also varied depending on the nature of the impeachment, just the managers, by definition, e'er support the Business firm's impeachment action.

The Use of Impeachment

The House has initiated impeachment proceedings more than lx times merely less than a 3rd have led to total impeachments. Just eight—all federal judges—have been bedevilled and removed from office by the Senate. Exterior of the xv federal judges impeached past the House, iii Presidents [Andrew Johnson in 1868, William Jefferson (Neb) Clinton in 1998, and Donald J. Trump in 2022 and 2021], a cabinet secretary (William Belknap in 1876), and a U.S. Senator (William Blount of Tennessee in 1797) have also been impeached. In only three instances—all involving removed federal judges—has the Senate taken the additional pace of barring them from ever holding time to come federal office.

Blount'southward impeachment trial—the first ever conducted—established the principle that Members of Congress and Senators were not "Civil Officers" nether the Constitution, and accordingly, they could just be removed from part by a ii-thirds vote for expulsion by their respective chambers. Blount, who had been accused of instigating an insurrection of American Indians to further British interests in Florida, was not convicted, only the Senate did expel him. Other impeachments accept featured judges taking the bench when drunk or profiting from their position. The trial of President Johnson, however, focused on whether the President could remove cabinet officers without obtaining Congress's approving. Johnson'south amortization firmly prepare the precedent—debated from the beginning of the nation—that the President may remove appointees even if they required Senate confirmation to concur office.

For Further Reading

Farrand, Max, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Rev. ed. four vols. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1937).

Kyvig, David E. The Historic period of Impeachment: American Constitutional Culture Since 1960. (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2008).

Les Benedict, Michael. The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson. (New York: W.West. Norton & Company, 1999).

Madison, James, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay. The Federalist Papers. (New York: Penguin Books, 1987).

Melton, Buckner F., Jr. The First Impeachment: The Constitution's Framers and the Instance of Senator William Blount. (Macon, Georgia: Mercer Academy Printing, 1998).

Rehnquist, William H. One thousand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson. (New York: Harper Perennial, 1999).

"Report past the Staff of the Impeachment Enquiry on the Ramble Grounds for Presidential Impeachment," Committee Impress, Commission on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, 93rd Cong., 2nd sess., Feb 1974.

Storing, Herbert J., ed. The Complete Anti-Federalist. 7 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Printing, 1981).

Sullivan, John. "Chapter 27—Impeachment," in Business firm Exercise: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents, and Procedures of the House. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2011).

Thomas, David Y. "The Law of Impeachment in the United States," The American Political Scientific discipline Review two (May 1908): 378–395.

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Source: https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Impeachment/#:~:text=The%20Constitution%20gives%20the%20House,disqualified%20from%20holding%20future%20office.

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