Impeach Bush!

[SEVERUSMAX]

I doubt very seriously that the Framers would set a system that would have landed quite a few of themselves in prison and out of office. Several of them, including Franklin, Gouverner Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson, were known philanderers. Hamilton admitted to it in public to clarify the fact that he was not an embezzler of public funds. Further, the fact that impeachment and conviction were so difficult indicated that this was not to be a routine process. If you impeached people over things were common and tacitly condoned in many states, you would waste a lot of time with impeachments. I very much doubt that it was intended to be a partisan process, either. It is significant that impeachments were rare in the early period. For instance, despite his constant, climbing debts, Justice James Wilson was never impeached. Indebtedness was something frowned upon as much or more in those days as adultery, sodomy, or fornication.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I doubt very seriously that the Framers would set a system that would have landed quite a few of themselves in prison and out of office. Several of them, including Franklin, Gouverner Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson, were known philanderers. Hamilton admitted to it in public to clarify the fact that he was not an embezzler of public funds. Further, the fact that impeachment and conviction were so difficult indicated that this was not to be a routine process. If you impeached people over things were common and tacitly condoned in many states, you would waste a lot of time with impeachments. I very much doubt that it was intended to be a partisan process, either. It is significant that impeachments were rare in the early period. For instance, despite his constant, climbing debts, Justice James Wilson was never impeached. Indebtedness was something frowned upon as much or more in those days as adultery, sodomy, or fornication.

"High crimes and misdemeanors" entered the text of the Constitution due to George Mason and James Madison. Mason had argued that the reasons given for impeachment -- treason and bribery -- were not enough. He worried that other "great and dangerous offenses" might not be covered, and suggested adding the word "maladministration." Madison argued that term was too vague, so Mason then proposed "high crimes and misdemeanors," a phrase well-known in English common law. In 18th century language, a "misdemeanor" meant "mis-demeanor,"or bad behavior (neglect of duty and corruption were given as examples), while "high crimes" was roughly equivalent to "great offenses."


Bad behavior, as explimpified by english common law, from which much of our law is derived.

You might even look to gerald ford for a pretty much horse sense definition:

"whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history."


That pretty much covers it. It's flexible and dependant on what a majority of the house, who theoretically should represent a majority of the popular view, believes it to be.

In practice, that has not been strictly nor even routinely the abuse of office you sight, but has been a melding of political consideration, common morality and occasionally actual criminal wrong doing.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Supposing that to be true, it is significant that Mason refused to sign the Constitution when it was finished. His main concerns were stopping any growth of tyranny as he defined it and the fact that slavery was tolerated (he was one of the first abolitionists).

I am just saying that Madison and others were mostly reasonable, sane men with few platitudes about sexual matters and a healthy respect for self-interest. I doubt that THEY had sex in mind for an impeachable offense.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Also, I regard the Patriot Act as a dangerous, unconstitutional piece of legislation. It reminds me a bit of the Enabling Act in Germany, also done in the name of "national security" and a "state of emergency".

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Supposing that to be true, it is significant that Mason refused to sign the Constitution when it was finished. His main concerns were stopping any growth of tyranny as he defined it and the fact that slavery was tolerated (he was one of the first abolitionists).

I am just saying that Madison and others were mostly reasonable, sane men with few platitudes about sexual matters and a healthy respect for self-interest. I doubt that THEY had sex in mind for an impeachable offense.

You seem to attribute a pervassive attitude towards sexuality in the period. That does not, historically speaking hold up very well. Everyone knew Ben Franklin was a womanizer, but it was tolerated because of his more endearing qualities, but by and large, sexuality was repressive during the period. Pretty much inline with the morality of the day with that special american spice of puritanical roots.

By and large, the framers were sane and rational men, mostly diests, mostly well educated, mostly the kind of law abiding men you find in any society. And they had their foibles, from the innocuous drinker to the flat out law breaking smuggler.

They made the grounds for impeachment vague, intentionally, in the same way they made many provisions vague, knowing future men would have to adapt the ssytem to fit events none could forsee. It's one of the greatest strengths of their vision, but also one that causes considerable conflict, because no two people will interpret things quite the same and no two men from differnt time periods are likely to agree on more than a handful.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Ah, but there you confuse the New England morality with that of the rest of the country at the time. New England WAS sexually repressed. The South was not. Pennsylvania, to a large extent, was not. New York, by and large, was not. There was a variety of views on morality, depending on the region of the country. We were not a monolithic society. New England morality was inherited from the Puritans, and even there, in some counties, half of brides were pregnant on their wedding days.

I highly recommend Decision In Philadelphia as a source on the subject of sexual attitudes at the time. Its main theme is about the Constitution and the diverse men who helped shape it, but it also covers the socioeconomic background of those men.

The South was much more "permissive" sexually. It was not Vegas, of course, or even as permissive as France at the time, but it was much freer than New England. That was because the men who emigrated were Anglicans and not Puritans, therefore rejecting their vision of a "Christian utopia".

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

For instance, prostitution was actually legal in most states before 1910, when the so-called "reformers" from the Women's Christian Temperance Union included it with Prohibition and drug use as things to be outlawed and pushed for it.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Here is a link to a history of impeachment and how it has been used in the US. The judgre that was mentioned was not a guy that got drunk one night at the tavern, he was an alcoholic and mentally incompetent, or so it was decided at the time. Other examples were perfectly valid, as in the case of Blount, or were mostly punitive. Some were partisan.

http://www.twyman-whitney.com/americancitizen/executive/impeach.htm