Samuel Chase

CHASE, SAMUEL

Samuel Chase served as a justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court from 1796 to 1811. In 1804 the
U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach
Chase. However, the Senate did not uphold the
House’s action and Chase continued to serve on
the Court until his death. Chase remains the
only justice who has been the subject of
IMPEACHMENT proceedings. Chase’s decisions
set several precedents for the Supreme Court,
among them opinions establishing the
supremacy of federal treaties over state laws and the establishment of JUDICIAL REVIEW, which is the Court’s power to void legislation it deems unconstitutional, a power that makes the judiciary one of the three primary branches of the federal government (the other two branches
being Congress and the president).
Known for his fiery and partisan manner,
Chase was an active politician for most of his
life. Before his career as a judge Chase served in
the Maryland colonial and state legislatures.As a
member of the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS in the
1770s, Chase was an outspoken advocate of
American independence from Britain.He signed
the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He
opposed the Constitution as an Anti-Federalist
(an opponent of federal government powers
over the states) in the 1780s. Later, however, he
became a member of the FEDERALIST PARTY and
as a Supreme Court justice helped establish the
powers of the federal judiciary. Chase generally favored a strong government ruled by an elite and he opposed the radical ideas of the French
Revolution.
Chase was born April 17, 1741, in Somerset
County, Maryland. His father, Thomas Chase,
was a British-born clergyman of the Church of
England. His mother, Matilda Walker Chase,
died at Chase’s birth. In 1744 the family moved
to Baltimore where Chase grew up and received
a classical education under his father’s supervision.
Chase studied law in Annapolis,Maryland,
at the office of Attorney John Hall from 1759
until he was admitted to the bar in 1763. In 1762
Chase married Ann Baldwin. They had seven
children, three of them dying in infancy. Ann
died sometime between 1776 and 1779 and in
1784 Chase married Hannah Kitty Giles, with
whom he had two daughters.
Chase established a successful law practice in
Annapolis, the colonial capital and later the state
capital of Maryland. He also became prominent
in colonial politics. In 1764 he was elected to the
lower house of Maryland’s colonial legislature as
a representative of Annapolis and by the early
1770s he had become well-known as a skillful
legislator and outstanding leader, earning the
nickname the Maryland Demosthenes after the
ancient Greek orator and politician. He represented
Maryland in the Continental Congresses
from 1774 to 1778 and 1784 to 1785 and in 1778
served on as many as thirty committees in his
tireless efforts to advance the cause of independence
from Britain. He advocated a boycott of
Britain and a political confederation of the
colonies. He denounced those who opposed
such policies as “despicable tools of power,
emerged from obscurity and basking in proprietary
sunshine.” Together with BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN and Charles Carroll, Chase traveled
in 1776 to Montreal in an unsuccessful attempt
to persuade Canada to join the American
colonies in their revolt against England. He
signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776
and worked for its acceptance in Maryland.
Chase helped draft the Maryland Constitution
in 1776. He served in the Maryland House
of Delegates for all but a year and a half
between 1777 and 1788.When the U.S. Constitution
came before the Maryland Convention
for ratification Chase was in the minority of
delegates who voted against it. He was an
ardent Anti-Federalist at the time and argued
that the Constitution concentrated power in
the hands of the central government at the
expense of the common individual. “I consider
the Constitution,” he wrote to a friend, “as radically
defective in this essential: the bulk of the
people can have nothing to say to it. The government
is not a government of the people.”He
also argued that the Constitution failed to protect
the FREEDOM OF THE PRESS and the right to
trial by jury.
His opposition to the Constitution cost him
his state legislative seat in 1788. The same year,
Chase also went bankrupt after several of his
speculative business ventures failed. These business
risks had also damaged his political career,
which had been plagued with charges that he
used his office for personal gain. In 1778 he had
been dismissed from the Continental Congress
for two years for allegedly attempting to corner
the flour market and profit from speculation on
prices.
Dogged by BANKRUPTCY and charges of corruption,
Chase sought refuge in the position of a
local judge in Baltimore County in 1788. In 1791
he was concurrently appointed chief judge of
the Maryland General Court. The state assembly,
upset with his behavior on the bench and his
holding two positions as judge, tried unsuccessfully
to remove him from both positions.
Chase might seem to have been an unlikely
choice for a Supreme Court justice. However,
President GEORGE WASHINGTON nominated
him to the Supreme Court on January 26, 1796.
Over the years Washington had been impressed by Chase’s legal skills; he also admired the zeal
with which Chase had worked for American
independence during the Revolutionary War as
well as Chase’s efforts in support of Washington
in the Continental Congress. James McHenry of
Maryland, the secretary of war and a friend of
Washington’s, strongly recommended Chase to
Washington. Moreover, the Supreme Court was
not very powerful or prestigious at the time and
it was difficult to find a lawyer who would accept
a position on it. The job did not pay well and
justices had to travel long distances to preside
over circuit courts.
Chase took his seat on the Court on February
4, 1796. He was an Anti-Federalist at the
time of the Constitution’s ratification but during
his tenure on the Court he became a persuasive
advocate for the federal judiciary’s power to
review legislation. Two cases from Chase’s first
session on the Supreme Court—Hylton v.
United States, 3 U.S. (Dall.) 171, 1 L. Ed. 556,
and Ware v. Hylton, 3 U.S. (Dall.) 199, 1 L. Ed.
568, both decided in March 1796—stand out. In
Hylton v. United States, the Court for the first
time reviewed a law passed by Congress.
Although the Court refrained from declaring its
ability to void acts of Congress on constitutional
grounds, its review nevertheless paved the way
for MARBURY V. MADISON, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch)
137, 2 L. Ed. 60 (1803), which established the
right of the Court to declare laws unconstitutional.
At issue in Ware v. Hylton was whether a
treaty decided by the federal government could
take precedence over state laws. The U.S. government
had made a treaty with Great Britain
following the Revolutionary War that provided
for the payment of debts owed to Great Britain.
The states, meanwhile, had passed their own
laws on this issue, many of which enabled U.S.
citizens to forgo repaying their debts to British
citizens. JOHN MARSHALL, future chief justice of
the Court, argued the case before the Court for
the debtors. The Court ruled that the national
treaty had precedent over state law. Of Chase’s
opinion in this case, constitutional scholar
EDWARD S. CORWIN wrote in 1930 that it
“remains to this day the most impressive assertion
of the supremacy of national treaties over
State laws.”
In Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. (Dall.) 386, 1 L. Ed.
648 (1798), Chase wrote a highly influential
opinion for the Court. He defined a constitutional
interpretation of EX POST FACTO laws—
that is, retroactive laws, or laws that affect
matters occurring before their enactment. Chase
decided that the Constitution’s prohibition of
such laws extended only to criminal statutes that
make prior conduct a crime, not to civil statutes.
Chase also set a precedent by arguing that any
law “contrary to the great first principles of the
social compact” must be declared void. In his
opinion, Chase emphasized that the Constitution
limits the ability of legislators to disturb
established property rights even when it does
not expressly set forth such rights. Described by
Presser as the natural-law basis of the Constitution,
this argument broadened the Court’s ability
to test the constitutionality of legislation.
In United States v. Callender, Chase’s Trial 65,
Whart. St. Tr. 668, 25 F. Cas. 239, No. 14, 709
(C.C. Va.) (1800), Chase further defined the
powers of the Court when he ruled that a jury
could not decide the constitutionality of a law:
[T]he judicial power of the United States is
the only proper and competent authority to
decide whether any statute made by congress (or any of the state legislatures) is contrary
to, or in violation of, the federal constitution.
. . . I believe that it has been the general
and prevailing opinion in all the Union, that
the power now wished to be exercised by a
jury, belongs properly to the Federal Courts.
Chase also found himself embroiled in
highly publicized political controversy for his
actions both on and off the bench. For example,
he made partisan speeches in 1796 for JOHN
ADAMS, the Federalist party candidate for president,
even after he had taken the position of
Supreme Court justice. He also pushed for passage
of the ALIEN AND SEDITION ACT, 1 Stat. 596
(1798), which outlawed “false, scandalous, and
malicious” attacks on the government, the president,
or Congress. The law was designed largely
to discourage criticism of President Adams by
the rival DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY,
whose most well-known leader was THOMAS
JEFFERSON. In circuit court decisions in 1799
and 1800 Chase imposed harsh sentences on
Democratic-Republicans who had published
opinions critical of Adams’s Federalist administration.
In several cases Chase worked to keep
Anti-Federalists off juries. In the case of John
Fries of Pennsylvania, a strong supporter of Jefferson
who had led rebellions against federal
excise taxes, Chase sentenced the accused to
death. President Adams subsequently set aside
the sentence.
In 1800 the political atmosphere in Washington,
D.C., changed when Jefferson defeated
Adams for the presidency of the United States.
In 1803 Chase got into trouble with the Jeffersonian
Democratic-Republicans when he
severely criticized their policies in front of a Baltimore
GRAND JURY. Chase explained that he
objected to recent changes in Maryland law that
gave more men the privilege of voting. Such
changes as these advanced by Democratic-
Republicans, Chase exclaimed, would
rapidly destroy all protection to property,
and all security to personal liberty, and our
Republican Constitution [would] sink into
mobocracy, the worst of all possible governments.
. . . The modern doctrines by our late
reformers, that all men in a state of society
are entitled to enjoy equal liberty and equal
rights, have brought this mighty mischief
upon us, and I fear that it will rapidly destroy
progress, until peace and order, freedom and
property shall be destroyed.
This angered Jefferson and other Democratic-
Republicans and in 1804 the U.S. House of
Representatives voted to impeach Chase on
charges of misconduct and bias in the SEDITION
cases and of seditious criticism of Jefferson in
the 1803 Baltimore grand jury charge. In 1805,
the Democratic-Republican–controlled U.S.
Senate moved to impeach Chase. Democratic-
Republican senators charged that Chase had
been guilty of judicial misconduct and that his
partisan acts showed that he lacked political
objectivity. Federalists defending Chase argued
that he had committed no crime and that he
could not be convicted under the constitutional
definition of HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS.
The Senate failed to achieve the
two-thirds majority necessary to impeach
Chase and he remained on the Court until his
death.
Chase’s acquittal set an important precedent
for the Court—no Supreme Court justice could
be removed simply because of his or her political
beliefs. The failure to impeach Chase allowed
Chief Justice Marshall to assert and define the
powers of the Court in future decisions with
more confidence. It was thus a step in the
process of defining the independence of the
Supreme Court as one of the three primary
branches of U.S. government.
Chase avoided controversy in his subsequent
work on the Court. His near impeachment
served as a warning both to him and to other
justices to be careful in their choice of words
while in office. As Chase suffered in later years
from declining health, Marshall became the
most vocal justice and assumed Chase’s position
as the lightning rod for the Court.
Chase died June 19, 1811, in Baltimore. He
was interred in St. Paul’s Cemetery.

FURTHER READINGS
Dilliard, Irving. 1969. “Samuel Chase.” In The Justices of the
United States Supreme Court, 1789–1969: Their Lives
and Major Opinions, ed. Leon Friedman and Fred L.
Israel. New York: Chelsea House.
Haw, James. 1993. “Samuel Chase.” In The Supreme Court
Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789–1993, ed. Claire
Cushman.Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly.

CROSS-REFERENCES
Constitution of the United States “Federalists vs.Anti-Federalists”
(In Focus); Fries’s Rebellion.

The Samuel Chase Impeachment Trial

Originally an anti-Federalist opposed to the ratification
of the U.S. Constitution on grounds that it
deprived the states of their independence and sovereignty,
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase
changed his tune about the propriety of a strong central
government once he saw the ANARCHY and
madness wrought by the French Revolution. By the
time he was seated on the nation’s high court, Chase
had earned a reputation for his zealous defense of
the FEDERALIST PARTY and his harsh criticism of the
DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY.
Generally speaking, the Federalist Party favored
a strong national government, promoted legislation
that advanced mercantile interests, supported the
creation of a national bank, and believed that the
federal government should be run by the most welleducated
and affluent Americans. The Democratic-
Republican Party generally favored stronger and
more independent state governments, promoted legislation
that advanced agricultural interests, opposed
the creation of a national bank, and believed that the
federal government should be run as a popular
democracy, with its power being directly and closely
derived from everyday, average Americans.
Chase’s political beliefs endeared him to the
White House while Federalist JOHN ADAMS was in
office. But in 1800 Democratic-Republican THOMAS
JEFFERSON defeated Adams to become the third
president of the United States, and his Democratic-
Republican Party took control of both houses of Congress.
Chase had rankled Democratic-Republicans
even before Jefferson took office. The beginning of
the fall term of the Supreme Court in 1800 had to be
postponed several weeks until Chase finished campaigning
for John Adams in Maryland.
After Jefferson took office, Chase began openly
assailing the president and his policies. Chase even
took to condemning the Democratic-Republicans
from the bench. In reading a charge to a Baltimore
GRAND JURY in May 1803, Chase unleashed what one
contemporary observer called “a tirade against
Democratic-Republican legislation.” Dismayed that
Jeffersonians in Maryland had established universal
male suffrage, Chase suggested to the grand jurors
that “the country . . . [was] headed down the road to
mobocracy, the worst of all popular governments”
and that, if left in power, Jeffersonian Democratic-
Republicans would eliminate “all security for property,
and personal liberty.” The “modern doctrine . . .
that all men in a state of society are entitled to equal
liberty and equal rights,” Chase warned, will bring
“mighty mischief upon us.” Finally, Chase said that
congressional Democratic-Republicans had gravely
compromised the independence of the judiciary by
repealing the Judiciary Act of 1801, which lame-duck
Federalist lawmakers had passed to create extra federal
judgeships for President Adams to fill.
When Jefferson learned of Chase’s grand jury
charge on May 13, 1803, he immediately wrote
Joseph Nicholson, one of his party leaders in the
House of Representatives, suggesting action against
Chase: “Ought this seditious and official act on the
principles of our Constitution, and on the proceedings
of a State, to go unpunished? And to whom so pointedly
as yourself will the public look for the necessary
measures? I ask these questions for your consideration,
for myself it is better that I should not interfere.”
Nicholson quietly alerted his Democratic-Republican
colleagues as to Jefferson’s suggestion. Less than a
year later, on March 12, 1804, the U.S. House of Representatives
voted to impeach Chase by a 73 to 32
margin, naming John Randolph, a cousin of Jefferson
and a mercurial politician in his own right, to head the
House Managers responsible for prosecuting Chase
in his trial before the Senate.
The eight ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT centered
on three charges. The first charge arose from
Chase’s remarks before the Baltimore grand jury. The
second charge stemmed from his conduct in the 1800
TREASON trial of John Fries. The third charge focused
on Chase’s conduct in the 1800 SEDITION trial of
James Callender. Together, the House managers
argued, these three charges represented judicial
misconduct amounting to impeachable HIGH CRIMES
AND MISDEMEANORS. Article II, Section 4 of the U.S
Constitution provides that the federal judges “shall
be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and
Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes
and Misdemeanors.”
The least serious of the charges concerned
Chase’s conduct in the Fries trial. Fries was accused
of treason for leading a riot over a dwelling tax in
Pennsylvania in 1799. At the outset of the Fries trial,
Chase had delivered a written opinion in which he defined the meaning of treason as a MATTER OF LAW,
without ever hearing argument from the lawyers in
the case. Fries’ attorneys were flabbergasted. They
withdrew from the case because, they contended,
Chase’s conduct had irrevocably tainted the jury pool
and made a fair trial impossible. Without counsel,
Fries was easily convicted. In defense of his actions,
Chase told the Senate that before the jury began
deliberating in the Fries case, he had instructed the
jurors that they had the final word on the definition of
treason and the final say on how that definition would
be applied to the facts of the case.
The most serious charge concerned Chase’s
conduct at the Callender trial. Callender had been
indicted under the provisions of the Sedition Act for
publishing a book accusing John Adams of being a
British toady and a monarchist. Passed in 1798 by a
Federalist Congress, the Sedition Act made it a crime
to speak or write in such a way as to bring the president
or Congress “into contempt or disrepute.” Jeffersonians
viewed the act as a political tool that the
Adams administration used to muzzle its opponents.
During the impeachment trial, the House Managers
presented evidence that Chase had prejudged
the Callender case. They offered testimony that
Chase, upon first reading Callender’s book, had
expressed the intent to present the offending passages
to a grand jury himself and obtain an indictment
against the defendant. Chase admitted threatening
such action but denied following through on the
threat and argued that the threat by itself did not constitute
a high crime or misdemeanor. The House Managers
also presented evidence that Chase failed to
exclude a juror from sitting on the jury, even though
the juror had formed an unfavorable opinion about
Callender. Chase admitted that one juror indicated
having formed such an opinion, but Chase said that
the same juror also said he had not formed an opinion
about the specific charges against the defendant.
The trial began on February 9, 1805, and the
House Managers took ten full days to present the testimony
of more than 50 witnesses. Chase did not testify
during the proceedings but instead read a
prepared statement that attempted to refute the
charges. Closing arguments started on February 20
and lasted several days. Martin Luther, one the country’s
most able and respected lawyers, represented
Chase. Seven House Managers, led by Randolph,
spoke for the prosecution. Thirty-Four senators
weighed the evidence, 25 Democratic-Republicans
and 9 Federalists. AARON BURR, Jefferson’s vice president,
presided over the proceedings. Twenty-two
votes, or two-thirds of the Senate, were necessary
for conviction.
On March 1, 1805, the Senate announced its verdicts.
Chase was acquitted on all counts. The closest
vote was 19–15 in favor of convicting Chase for his
anti–Democratic-Republican remarks to the Baltimore
grand jury. Contemporary observers and historians
have given Martin Luther a lion’s share of the
credit for the acquittals. His closing argument deeply
impressed the Senate with ideas that Chase was a
wronged man and that the integrity and independence
of the federal judiciary would be imperiled by
conviction. John Randolph’s closing argument, by
contrast, was described as so ineffective, disorganized,
shrill, and blatantly partisan that even Thomas
Jefferson was alienated.
The failure of the Senate to convict allowed
Chase to return to the Supreme Court and serve 6
more years as an associate justice. More importantly,
the acquittal deterred the House of Representatives
from using impeachment as a partisan
political tool. Some historians have suggested that
the Chase impeachment trial was just a TEST CASE
for House Democratic-Republicans who would have
pursued other impeachments more aggressively.
The Chase impeachment is also said to have left
a lasting impression on Chase’s friend, Chief Justice
JOHN MARSHALL, who spent much of his later career
attempting to demonstrate that the nation’s high
court was separate from and even above party politics.
In the final analysis, these two results represent
flip sides of the same coin: one result increased the
independence of the federal judiciary from interference
by the legislative and executive branches, while
the other result revealed the danger to that independence
created by unelected federal judges who
publicly attack the popular policies of democratically
elected lawmakers.

FURTHER READINGS
Presser, Stephen B. 1991. The Original Misunderstanding: The
English, the Americans, and the Dialectic of Federalist
Jurisprudence. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic.
Rehnquist, William H. 1992. Grand Inquests: The Historic
Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President
Andrew Johnson. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic.

CROSS-REFERENCES
High Crimes and Misdemeanors.