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The delegates to the Convention had a difficult time deciding how many representatives each state would get in the new congress. The large states felt that representation (the number of elected officials each states gets) should be based off of population. The smaller states believed that all states, regardless of size, should get the same number of representation. They decided to create two houses (bicameral); the house of representatives and the house of senate. The house of Senate was for the New Jersey Plan (the small states), and the house of Representatives was for the Virginia Plan (the large states). Every state got two senators to represent them, but the representatives were based off of population.

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This is set up with ads and it's taken paragraph at a time

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The Great Compromise of 1787 is an event of great importance in the US history. It laid the foundation of the present day structure of the US Congress. It was an attempt to address the concern of proper representation of both the larger, more populous states and those with smaller population.

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The Great Compromise of 1787 is an event of great importance in the US history. It laid the foundation of the present day structure of the US Congress. It was an attempt to address the concern of proper representation of both the larger, more populous states and those with smaller population.

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This includes a short paragraph of information, but there are many different links within the paragraph and below

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The Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman's Compromise) was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution. It retained the bicameral legislature as proposed by Roger Sherman, along with proportional representation in the lower house, but required the upper house to be weighted equally between the states. Each state would have two representatives in the upper house.

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The Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman's Compromise) was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution.

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The Great Compromise Explained in 5 Minutes: US History Review

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Delegates from the Northern and Southern states at the Constitutional Convention disagreed on how slaves should be counted in the population. The population determined how many representatives the state got and how much tax money the state would pay. The Southern delegates proposed that slaves should be counted in representation but not taxes. The Northern delegates strongly opposed the plan and began to argue that slaves were considered as property. They eventually came to the conclusion that slaves should be counted as 3/5 of a person for both representation and taxes. This basically means that for every five slaves, three people were counted.

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Delegates from the Northern and Southern states at the Constitutional Convention disagreed again over the issue of trade and its regulation (control). The northern states were more industrial (making products) and wanted the federal government to regulate (control) trade so that the national economy could run more smoothly. The Southern states were scared that the regulation of trade would threaten the trade of slaves and interfere with the export of their agriculture products (mainly cotton and tobacco).

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At the Constitutional Convention, many issues about slavery were debated making slavery a major issue when trying to pass the new Constitution. The south believed that slavery was essential to their economy. Due to no or a lack of plantations in the north, they didn't understand how important slaves were to the southern economy. Two South Carolina delegates eventually came up with the idea that Northern states had to return runaway slaves back to the south. This also meant that if a slave escaped to a free state (a state without slaves), they had to be sent back to their owners in the South. This would protect slave owners' rights and property and please the delegates from states allowing slavery.

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The Federalists wanted a strong central (national) government. Basically, they wanted more power over the states. They were in favor of the Constitution without the Bill Of Rights because they believed a Bill of Rights was unnecessary. A strong central government would protect the people, so a Bill of Rights wouldn't do anything. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay were leaders of the Federalists group. The Anti-Federalists were in favor of a strong state government, because they didn't want to take rights away from the people. Essentially, they wanted to avoid another King or tyranny. They were against the Constitution unless it included a Bill of Rights to protect them. They believed that the Bill of Rights was essential to protect freedoms. George Mason, Patrick Henry, and Mercy Otis Warren were Anti-Federalists leaders. Eventually, the Federalists agreed to have a Bill of Rights, so the Anti-Federalists finally agreed to sign the Constitution in 1787.

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The proposal for apportionment for the determination of each state's number of seats in the House of Representatives became an issue when the Constitution was being drafted in 1787. Aside from being a complex system and method for calculating the population through the census and then establishing a number of seats for representation, the issue as to who was eligible to be counted for the population was a topic of controversy. However, it is no surprise that this agreement is known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, for the Constitution itself was born out of compromise between the Framers of the Constitution.

However, the Three-Fifths Compromise is arguably the most controversial topic, for it delegates that all slaves of a particular state are to be counted as three-fifths of a white person. The population of slaves would be counted as three-fifths in total when apportioning Representatives, as well as Presidential electors and taxes.

The Three-Fifths Compromise was proposed by James Wilson and Roger Sherman, who were both delegates for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. However, the Three-Fifth Compromise has its roots further back in history, dating back to the Continental Congress in 1783. The Compromise was a result of the apportionment of taxes being related to land values.

Initially, taxes were levied not in accordance to the population numbers, but the actual value of the land. Many states began to depreciate the value of the land in order to provide for relief from their taxes. A committee was held that would rectify the situation by implementing the apportionment of taxes in relation to the state's population. However, this idea was met with the dispute over how to consider slaves in the apportionment process and the actual ratio of slaves to free people at that time.

For the most part, those who opposed slavery only wanted to consider the free people of a population, while those in favor wanted to include slaves in the population count. This would provide for slave holders to have many more seats in the House of Representatives and more representation in the Electoral College. Many ratios were considered, such as three-fourths, one-half, and one-quarter. After much debate, it would be James Madison that would suggest the Three-Fifths Compromise. However, the Three-Fifths Compromise would not be adopted until the Constitutional Convention because the Compromise was not approved by all of the states and the Articles of Federation required a unanimous vote.

The implementation of the Three-Fifths Compromise would greatly increase the representation and political power of slave-owning states. The Southern states, if represented equally, would have accounted for 33 of the seats in the House of Representatives. However, because of the Three-Fifths Compromise, the Southern states accounted for 47 seats in the House of Representatives of the first United States Congress of 1790. This would allow for the South to garner enough power at the political level, giving them control in Presidential elections.

However, as time moved forward, the Three-Fifths Compromise would not provide the advantage for which the Southern states and slave-owners had hoped. The Northern states grew more rapidly in terms of population than the South. Even though Southern states had essentially dominated all political platforms prior to the Civil War, afterward that control would be relinquished slowly but surely. It would not be until the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was be enacted in 1865 that the Three-Fifths Compromise would be rendered obsolete.

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Three Fifths Compromise - constitution | Laws.com

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The proposal for apportionment for the determination of each state's number of seats in the House of Representatives became an issue when the Constitution was being drafted in 1787. Aside from being a complex system and method for calculating the population through the census and then establishing a number of seats for representation, the issue as to who was eligible to be counted for the population was a topic of controversy.

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The Three-Fifths Compromise is found in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution: Representatives and direct ...

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The 3/5 Compromise Video

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The Three-Fifths Compromise Explained: US History Review

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On 25 May 1787, fifty-five delegates from all the states of the American Union met in the town of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This convention, called the Constitutional Convention, aimed to modify the Articles of Confederation by which the government was being run since the Great War of Independence, because it had weakened the government.

Most of the delegates were veterans of the Great War themselves. Rhode Island did not send its representatives, because it was against the empowerment of the federal government, which, it feared, would weaken the states.

It was soon clear to all the delegates at the meeting, that rather than modify the existing government, it was better to write a new constitution instead. However, the approval of this constitution required several compromises to allay the fears and disputes between various states. As a result, the final constitution is often called a 'bundle of compromises'. These compromises were initially proposed by a committee formed in the convention, called the Committee of Detail. But since these were rejected, it was another committee, called the Committee of Eleven, who wrote the final compromises, which were then accepted to avoid the failure of the convention. Let us understand what was the significance of the Commerce and Slave Trade Compromise.

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Significance of the Commerce and Slave Trade Compromise in the U.S. Constitution

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The Commerce and Slave Trade Compromise was reached during the US Constitutional Convention of 1787. But what did this compromise accomplish? Historyplex answers this question, along with telling you about its significance.

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General facts Opinion of the northern United States The commerce compromise is an agreement between the northern and the southern United States during the Constitutional Congress in 1787. At the end they agreed to have taxes only on the imported goods an also that the federal

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Slavery and the USA

Growing up, we are often taught compromise. There's a good reason for this: compromise is a positive thing. Usually. But sometimes it creates more of a problem since the actual issue isn't fully resolved. A good example of this is one of the most divisive issues in American history: slavery. The nation actually fought a civil war partly over this institution. While slavery was in debate since the founding of this nation, politicians from 1776 to 1860 resolved it through compromise. Why? Because slavery was never simply about slaves. It was deeply intertwined with other issues concerning the government, the economy, democracy, and the American republic itself. Let's take a look at what happened.

Debates in the Constitutional Convention

The first years of America's existence weren't easy. After the Revolutionary War, the new states realized that they had very different ideas about government. Most wanted a weak central government with strong state governments, and after the war, that's what they had. However, it wasn't working. The federal government had practically no power to tax or enforce laws, and the nation was falling apart. This was evident when a former soldier named Daniel Shays led a rebellion against the federal government in 1786 and the government didn't actually have the power to stop him. Shays' Rebellion had to be suppressed by a private militia. So, in 1787, delegates from each state met at a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to write out a new constitution, and thereby create a new government.

The Constitutional Convention, attended by a group of lively debaters, was immediately beset by differing ideas. Northern states tended to favor a stronger central government, while Southern states still wanted a weaker federal government. Eventually, this debate started to circulate around the idea of slavery. The Northern states were largely urbanized, relying on trade and industrial production. Some had already outlawed slavery in their state constitutions. The Southern states were almost entirely agricultural, and agriculture was the most profitable industry in the new nation. In fact, Southern agriculture was sustaining the struggling American economy, and the use of enslaved people was sustaining Southern agriculture. All of these issues warped together into a substantial political debate over the future of the nation.

The Slave Trade Compromise

So, where did the compromises begin? Actually, they began with commerce. Northern states wanted to give the federal government the authority to regulate commerce. This was a big change from before and gave a lot of power to the government. Southern states didn't like this. After all, the slave trade was technically a matter of interstate commerce, so if the government regulated commerce they could prohibit the buying and selling of people to use as slaves.

To resolve the issue, a compromise was proposed. The federal government was given some authority over commerce, with the agreement that Congress would not prohibit the slave trade until 1808. However, it was agreed that the federal government could tax the importation of people to be used as slaves from other nations. Since most of the world's slave trade operated through the Caribbean, this did give Congress at least the ability to economically benefit from the slave trade. This was called the Slave Trade Compromise.

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the slave trade compromise: definition & commerce video with lesson transcript | study.com

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The Slave Trade Compromise: Definition & Commerce Video with Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Growing up, we are often taught compromise. There's a good reason for this: compromise is a positive thing. Usually. But sometimes it creates more of a problem since the actual issue isn't fully resolved. A good example of this is one of the most divisive issues in American history: slavery.

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The Commerce Compromise Picture for More

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The Commerce Compromise Picture for More

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Table of Contents

1. What Were the Fugitive Slave Acts?

2. Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

3. Prigg v. Pennsylvania

4. Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

5. Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Acts

The Fugitive Slave Acts were a pair of federal laws that allowed for the capture and return of runaway enslaved people within the territory of the United States. Enacted by Congress in 1793, the first Fugitive Slave Act authorized local governments to seize and return escapees to their owners and imposed penalties on anyone who aided in their flight. Widespread resistance to the 1793 law led to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which added more provisions regarding runaways and levied even harsher punishments for interfering in their capture. The Fugitive Slave Acts were among the most controversial laws of the early 19th century.

What Were the Fugitive Slave Acts?

Statutes regarding refugee slaves existed in America as early as 1643 and the New England Confederation, and slave laws were later enacted in several of the 13 original colonies.

Among others, New York passed a 1705 measure designed to prevent runaways from fleeing to Canada, and Virginia and Maryland drafted laws offering bounties for the capture and return of escaped enslaved people.

By the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, many Northern states including Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut had abolished slavery.

Concerned that these new free states would become safe havens for runaways, Southern politicians saw that the Constitution included a "Fugitive Slave Clause." This stipulation (Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3) stated that, "no person held to service or labor" would be released from bondage in the event they escaped to a free state.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

Despite the inclusion of the Fugitive Slave Clause in the U.S. Constitution, anti-slavery sentiment remained high in the North throughout the late 1780s and early 1790s, and many petitioned Congress to abolish the practice outright.

Bowing to further pressure from Southern lawmakers-who argued the slave debate was driving a wedge between the newly created states-Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.

This edict was similar to the Fugitive Slave Clause in many ways, but included a more detailed description of how the law was to be put into practice. Most importantly, it decreed that owners of enslaved people and their "agents" had the right to search for escapees within the borders of free states.

In the event they captured a suspected runaway, these hunters had to bring them before a judge and provide evidence proving the person was their property. If court officials were satisfied by their proof-which often took the form of a signed affidavit-the owner would be permitted to take custody of the enslaved person and return to their home state. The law also imposed a $500 penalty on any person who helped harbor or conceal escapees.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was immediately met with a firestorm of criticism. Northerners bristled at the idea of turning their states into a stalking ground for bounty hunters, and many argued the law was tantamount to legalized kidnapping. Some abolitionists organized clandestine resistance groups and built complex networks of safe houses to aid enslaved people in their escape to the North.

Refusing to be complicit in the institution of slavery, most Northern states intentionally neglected to enforce the law. Several even passed so-called "Personal Liberty Laws" that gave accused runaways the right to a jury trial and also protected free blacks, many of whom had been abducted by bounty hunters and sold into slavery.

Did you know? The passage of the Fugitive Slave Acts resulted in many free blacks being illegally captured and sold into slavery. One famous case concerned Solomon Northup, a freeborn black musician who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841. Northup would spend 12 years enslaved in Louisiana before winning back his freedom in 1853.

Prigg v. Pennsylvania

The legality of Personal Liberty Laws was eventually challenged in the 1842 Supreme Court case Prigg v. Pennsylvania. The case concerned Edward Prigg, a Maryland man who was convicted of kidnapping after he captured a suspected slave in Pennsylvania.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Prigg, setting the precedent that federal law superseded any state measures that attempted to interfere with the Fugitive Slave Act.

Despite decisions like Prigg v. Pennsylvania, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 remained largely unenforced. By the mid-1800s, thousands of enslaved people had poured into free states via networks like the Underground Railroad.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Following increased pressure from Southern politicians, Congress passed a revised Fugitive Slave Act in 1850.

Part of Henry Clay 's famed Compromise of 1850-a group of bills that helped quiet early calls for Southern secession-this new law forcibly compelled citizens to assist in the capture of runaways. It also denied enslaved people the right to a jury trial and increased the penalty for interfering with the rendition process to $1,000 and six months in jail.

In order to ensure the statute was enforced, the 1850 law also placed control of individual cases in the hands of federal commissioners. These agents were paid more for returning a suspected runaway than for freeing them, leading many to argue the law was biased in favor of Southern slaveholders.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was met with even more impassioned criticism and resistance than the earlier measure. States like Vermont and Wisconsin passed new measures intended to bypass and even nullify the law, and abolitionists redoubled their efforts to assist runaways.

The Underground Railroad reached its peak in the 1850s, with many enslaved people fleeing to Canada to escape U.S. jurisdiction.

Resistance also occasionally boiled over into riots and revolts. In 1851 a mob of antislavery activists rushed a Boston courthouse and forcibly liberated an escapee named Shadrach Minkins from federal custody. Similar rescues were later made in New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Acts

Widespread opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 saw the law become virtually unenforceable in certain Northern states, and by 1860 only around 330 enslaved people had been successfully returned to their Southern masters.

Republican and Free Soil congressmen regularly introduced bills and resolutions related to repealing the Fugitive Slave Act, but the law persisted until after the beginning of the Civil War. It wasn't until June 28, 1864, that both of the Fugitive Slave Acts were repealed by an act of Congress.

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Fugitive Slave Acts - Definition, 1793 & 1850 | HISTORY

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The Fugitive Slave Acts, passed in 1793 and 1850, were federal laws that allowed for the capture and return of runaway enslaved people within the United States.

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Also found in: Wikipedia.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 mandated that states to which escaped slaves fled were obligated to return them to their masters upon their discovery and subjected persons who helped runaway slaves to criminal sanctions. The first Fugitive Slave Act was enacted by Congress in 1793 but as the northern states abolished Slavery, the act was rarely enforced. The southern states bitterly resented the northern attitude toward slavery, which was ultimately demonstrated by the existence of the Underground Railroad, an arrangement by which abolitionists helped runaway slaves obtain freedom.

To placate the South, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (9 Stat. 462) was enacted by Congress as part of the Compromise of 1850. It imposed a duty on all citizens to assist federal marshals to enforce the law or be prosecuted for their failure to do so. The act also required that when a slave was captured, he or she was to be brought before a federal court or commissioner, but the slave would not be tried by a jury nor would his or her testimony be given much weight. The statements of the slave's alleged owner were the main evidence, and the alleged owner was not even required to appear in court.

Northern reaction against the Fugitive Slave Act was strong, and many states enacted laws that nullified its effect, making it worthless. In cases where the law was enforced, threats or acts of mob violence often required the dispatch of federal troops. Persons convicted of violating the act were often heavily fined, imprisoned, or both. The refusal of northern states to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act was alleged by South Carolina as one reason for its secession from the Union prior to the onset of the Civil War.

The acts of 1793 and 1850 remained legally operative until their repeal by Congress on June 28, 1864 (13 Stat. 200).

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definition of fugitive slave act of 1850

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Definition of Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 in the Legal Dictionary - by Free online English dictionary and encyclopedia. What is Fugitive Slave Act of 1850? Meaning of Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 as a legal term. What does Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 mean in law?

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Sound Smart: The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 | History

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In my most recent posts, I set forth the evidence from English legal history and from the records of the Constitutional Convention supporting a broad understanding of the Constitution's impeachment standard, "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," as a matter of the original public meaning of the words of the text. Today, I take up the confirming evidence for such a broad understanding in the ratification writings and ratification-convention debates.

The place to begin, as usual, is The Federalist - the single best exposition of the Constitution's provisions and (usually) a reasonably reliable indicator of the document's original meaning. Alexander Hamilton, writing as Publius, specifically addressed the power of impeachment in The Federalist 65 and 66. He then returned to the power of impeachment in The Federalist 79 and 81 in discussing the existence of checks against abuse specifically of the judicial power. Both sets of papers are highly instructive concerning the scope, meaning, use, and original understanding of the impeachment power.

This is not merely because they are Hamilton's thoughts. Framer veneration is not the justification for attending to The Federalist. Nor is it because The Federalist is authoritative "legislative history" defining the meaning of the Constitution's terms. Rather, it is because Hamilton's extensive, public discussion of the nature and scope of the impeachment power well displays, from an exceptionally able source, the likely meaning and contemporaneous understanding of the Constitution's language, as demonstrated by its usage in important discourse at the time. Moreover, Hamilton's perspective is consistent with the views expressed by essentially every other prominent speaker in the ratification debates. As I will show tomorrow, literally all of that evidence points in the direction of understanding the power of impeachment as conferring a broad range of legislative discretion to punish executive and judicial officers for a wide array of misconduct not limited to criminal-law offences.
Hamilton in The Federalist
One is tempted to say: "just go read them yourself." Hamilton's Federalist 65 and Federalist 66 constitute the single most complete and insightful discussion of the constitutional power of impeachment we have, as understood by one of the most lucid and useful sources available from the founding era. As such, it is important evidence of the (presumptive) original textual meaning of the Constitution.

Everything Hamilton has to say about impeachment is consistent with a broad understanding of the impeachment power. Interestingly, Hamilton does not specifically plumb the meaning of the term "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," as if the term were some mystery to be explained. Rather, he seems to treat the broad scope of the power of impeachment as a given, and presumes the Constitution's language to be a sufficiently clear expression of that scope. Federalist 65 is Hamilton's exposition of the meaning of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," and he does not even use the term!

In a sense, then, Federalist 65 is as important for what it does not say as for what it does. It does not treat the meaning of the Constitution's impeachment standard as a matter of dispute or controversy. The entire discussion seems to reflect the existence of a broad tacit consensus as to the meaning of the impeachment standard itself. Its scope is not treated as doubtful or unclear, but instead as having a broad range of application committed to the high-political judgments of the House and the Senate, each playing its respective role in the process. There is no record of any substantial disagreement as to the scope of the impeachment power in the ratification debates. What was controversial - what apparently needed defending, and is therefore the principal theme of The Federalist essays on impeachment - was the decision to vest the final power to apply such a sweeping standard in the Senate. That was what needed justification and argument. Hamilton's discussion of the impeachment standard itself comes almost casually in the course of defending the propriety of vesting the power to apply that standard in the House and Senate.

Federalist 65 opens with a description of the Senate's "judicial character" as a "court of impeachments." Hamilton assumes the importance and necessity of an impeachment power: "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." It is important to vest the power to try impeachments in a proper political institution, because the "jurisdiction" of impeachment extends to - here comes Hamilton's en passant reference to the breadth of the impeachment standard -

those offenses 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.

In describing the jurisdiction of impeachment as extending to "political" offenses, Hamilton's discussion tracks - without feeling the need to mention it by name - the backdrop English precedent understanding of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," reflected in longstanding practice and Blackstone's commentaries.
A National Inquest
Because impeachment is "a NATIONAL INQUEST into the conduct of public men," Hamilton continues, it was a power proper to vest in "the representatives of the nation themselves." The "model from which the idea of this institution has institution has been borrowed pointed out that course to the convention. In Great Britain it is the province of the House of Commons to prefer the impeachment, and of the House of Lords to decide upon it." Hamilton noted that several state constitutions followed that same model of dividing the impeachment power between the two houses of the legislature. He then explicitly linked institutional arrangement to constitutional function: the power of impeachment is to serve "as a bridle in the hands of the legislative body upon the executive servants of the government." Hamilton cinches the point with a rhetorical question, to which he assumes the answer is obvious: "Is not this the true light in which it ought to be regarded?" Hamilton reiterated the point for emphasis in The Federalist No. 66, referring to "the powers relating to impeachments" being, "as before intimated, an essential check in the hands of that [legislative] body upon the encroachments of the executive."

The nature of impeachment a "bridle in the hands of the legislative body" upon the executive - one pictures a rider holding the reins of a willful, headstrong animal, keeping him under control - and as involving offenses against the public, made it proper to vest the power to try impeachments in the Senate. "Where else," Hamilton asks, "could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent?" He dismisses the alternative of vesting the power in the Supreme Court, on several grounds: its members would be insufficiently numerous, insufficiently prestigious, and might later need to be in a position to judge an appeal from a criminal-law prosecution for the same conduct, because "the punishment which may be the consequence of conviction upon impeachment is not to terminate the chastisement of the offender." After being "sentenced to a perpetual ostracism from the esteem and confidence and honors and emoluments of his country, he will still be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law." Hamilton thought it proper not to let the latter process be overseen by persons who had participated in the former.

This last point - the potential conflict of interest, or at least awkwardness, in the Supreme Court judging a criminal prosecution when it had earlier sat in judgment of impeachment - suggests two further, important conclusions. First, Hamilton treats as a given the possibility that acts constituting ordinary criminal-law wrongdoings can be grounds for impeachment, even if impeachable acts need not be of such character but can include "POLITICAL" wrongs against the society itself. ( As I discussed in an earlier post, this conclusion seems clearly right.) Second, and relatedly, Hamilton draws a crisp distinction between the processes and punishment of impeachment and those of the ordinary criminal law.
Political, Not Criminal
Hamilton's discussion thus refutes two equal and opposite types of errors often committed today: the view that impeachment must involve a criminal-law offense; and the view that impeachment is inappropriate for " mere " criminal-law violations, on the theory that such matters are reserved to the criminal-law process.

Impeachment is different from criminal law proceedings and is governed by different standards and different principles. This leads Hamilton to his most expansive description of the scope of the impeachment power: The "nature of the proceeding" is such that it "can never be tied down by such strict rules, either in the delineation of the offense by the prosecutors or in the construction of it by the judges, as in common cases serve to limit the discretion of courts in favor of person security." A court of impeachment must possess the "awful discretion" to "doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community."

It is impossible to read Hamilton in The Federalist without a sense of the sheer breadth of the power of impeachment, its irreducibly high-political nature, and the vast discretion it affords to legislative judgment to punish wrongs of a "political" or constitutional character as well as traditional criminal behavior.

Hamilton continues this theme of impeachment as a vital legislative check in his discussions of judicial impeachment as a check against misuse of judicial power, in The Federalist 79 and especially in Federalist 81. The check of impeachment extends to faithlessness in performance of constitutional duty and actions - including habitual or recurrent judicial decision contrary to law (a point that richly challenges today's judicial-supremacy-soaked legal and political culture). "The precautions for their responsibility [that is, judges' responsibility] are comprised in the article respecting impeachments," Hamilton writes in The Federalist 79. "They are liable to be impeached for malconduct" and removed from office for such misbehavior.

And what might constitute such judicial "malconduct" warranting impeachment? Hamilton offers an extended discussion in The Federalist 81, in answering the objection - made by the prominent New York anti-Federalist writer "Brutus" - of what Hamilton calls "the supposed danger of judiciary encroachments on the legislative authority, which has been upon many occasions reiterated." Hamilton, perhaps overly optimistically, referred to such supposed danger as being "in reality a phantom" because of the limited nature of judicial power, the "comparative weakness" of the judiciary, and "its total incapacity to support its usurpations by force." He then continues, discussing the check of impeachment:

And the inference is greatly fortified by the consideration of the important constitutional check which the power or instituting impeachments in one part of the legislative body, and of determining upon them in the other, would give to that body upon the members of the judicial department. This is alone a complete security. There never can be danger that the judges, by a series of deliberate usurpations of the authority of the legislature, would hazard the united resentment of the body intrusted with it, while this body was possessed of the means of punishing their presumption by degrading them from their stations. While this ought to remove all apprehensions on the subject it affords, at the same time, a cogent argument for constituting the Senate a court for the trial of impeachments.

The sense of this extended passage is hard to miss. Impeachment is a contemplated, permissible, appropriate remedy, for "a series of deliberate usurpations" of power committed by judges. Persistent abuse of judicial office or judicial power - including misuse of the core case-deciding, adjudicative power of courts - falls within Hamilton's understanding of the scope of the power to impeach for high crimes and misdemeanors. In my prior academic writing, I have embraced Hamilton's position, as to the propriety of the use of impeachment as a check on abuse of judicial power.

This is obviously a broad understanding of the impeachment power generally. It supports and reinforces the conclusion that the power of impeachment reaches "political" crimes of broad description, including such wrongs as willful violation of the Constitution, misuse of constitutional powers actually possessed, and encroachment upon the powers of Congress or the rights of the people. Such a broad understanding of the impeachment power obviously has important implications for presidential impeachments.

These were not just Hamilton's views. In my next post, I take up the strongly supportive evidence of the soundness of The Federalist on impeachment coming from evidence of debates discussing the scope of the impeachment power in the state ratification conventions of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and from other early historical evidence confirming a broad understanding of the impeachment power.

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Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, and the Power of Impeachment - Law & Liberty

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In my most recent posts, I set forth the evidence from English legal history and from the records of the Constitutional Convention supporting a broad understanding of the Constitution's impeachment standard, "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," as a matter of the original public meaning of the words of the text.

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In the war of words over whether or not to ratify the U.S. Constitution, the two opposing sides - the Federalists, who supported ratification, and the Anti-Federalists, who did not - always used pen names when publishing articles arguing for or against ratification. They did this both because it was a common practice and to hide their true identities. We know today that "Publius," the author of the pro-ratification Federalist Papers, was really Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison. We think "Brutus," the most prolific Anti-Federalist author, was New York's Robert Yates, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, but one who refused to sign the finished document.

For Mercy Otis Warren, born this week (Sept. 25) in 1728, hiding her identity with the pen name "A Columbian Patriot" was even more important because in the 1780s women simply did not join the public policy debate. But Warren was a passionate patriot who had long spoken her mind through the printed word. In the run up to the American Revolution she had published several polemics and had written several plays criticizing Royal authority in America and warning the colonists about the growing assault on their rights and liberties that the British were undertaking.

Warren was also an Anti-Federalist. She disliked the Constitution almost as much as she disliked the British, and while many Anti-Federalists differed over whether to revise the proposed Constitution - and if so, how much - other Anti-Federalists, Warren among them, wanted to scrap the entire document and start over. Outraged that her home state of Massachusetts had voted to ratify the Constitution without demanding wholesale changes beforehand, Warren wrote her most famous pamphlet, Observations on the Constitution, in which she listed 15 objections to the Constitution. She hoped that Observations would at least convince the states still in the undecided camp, especially New York, to reject the Constitution outright, and more than 15,000 copies of her pamphlet were distributed throughout the state of New York.

It's unknown what effect Warren's pamphlet had on the eventual outcome in New York - by a very close vote New York ratified the Constitution and, like Massachusetts, included several amendments to the Constitution that it wanted the first Congress to consider once it was in session. But Warren's pamphlet was taken seriously enough that the aforementioned John Jay, one of New York's leading Federalists, was moved to write a response.

Mercy Warren may not deserve the title "Founding Mother," but she went where few women had gone before. And in 1805, under her own name, she published History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, one of the first histories of the revolution ever written, and certainly the first ever written by a woman.

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Mercy Warren - America's First Female Anti-Federalist

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In the war of words over whether or not to ratify the U.S. Constitution, the two opposing sides - the Federalists, who supported ratification, and the Anti-Federalists, who did not - always used pen names when publishing articles arguing for or against ratification.

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Federalists vs Anti-Federalists in Five Minutes

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Federalists vs Anti-Federalists Picture for More 

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Federalists vs Anti-Federalists Picture for More 