The nation’s 250 Anniversary is only 29 months away.  The National Association of Scholars is commemorating the events that led up to the Second Continental Congress officially adopting the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. This is the third installment of the series. Find the second installment here. 

Because he has sought to “destroy the present form of Government … and establish an arbitrary and tyrannical Government in its stead, this House of Representatives … DO IMPEACH.”

Who?

Alejandro Mayorkas, the feckless Secretary of Homeland Security?

Alejandro Mayorkas — Photo by Zachary Hupp — Department of Homeland Security

President Joe Biden?

Joe Biden — Gage Skidmore — Wikimedia Commons

The left’s perpetual bogeyman, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas?

Justice Clarence Thomas — The Oyez Project — Wikimedia Commons

Or—third time’s the charm—former President Donald Trump?

President Donald Trump — The White House — Wikimedia Commons

No, this broadside thundered at Peter Oliver, Esq., Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts Bay Province. On February 24, 1774, the Great and General Court of Massachusetts impeached Justice Oliver by a vote of 92 to 8. His was the first impeachment in the Colonies, a decisive step along the path to the American Revolution.

Peter Oliver — Prabook

Turkeys and Cannonballs

Oliver himself loudly denounced the Revolution as a “rebellion.” But apart from his strenuous tongue, in 1774, he might have seemed a surprising candidate for impeachment.

He was Massachusetts-born—in 1713—and bred. An ancestor, Thomas Oliver, emigrated to the New World in 1632, and his family members inhabited a constellation of offices in the colony. Peter attended Harvard College, where he ranked high in scholarship but, in perhaps some hint of trouble to come, was disciplined for stealing a turkey and a goose.

After college, he owned an ironworks, producing, among other useful items, cannonballs. His trade was profitable enough to allow him to build Oliver Hall in Middleborough, Massachusetts, which was known for its size, elegance, and beauty. That is, until his former fellow countrymen burned it down in 1782.

Oliver was named a justice of the peace in 1744, appointed to the Court of Common Pleas in 1747, to the superior court in 1756, and then elevated to Chief Justice in 1771. Here was a colonial success story.

What went wrong?

Drunks, Debauchees, and the Sordid Lust of Covetousness

Impeachment is rare in American history. Most federal impeachments have involved judges, typically for official misconduct—drunkenness on the bench is a no-no, and yet what about “In vino veritas?”

Presidential impeachment is all the rarer.

Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing a cabinet officer in violation of the Tenure in Office Act. Bill Clinton was impeached, not for defiling cigars, a dress, or even the Oval Office, but for lying to a grand jury and obstructing justice. And Donald Trump was impeached bigly—once on the charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress, and then on the charge of inciting an insurrection. Yet, in all these cases, the Senate acquitted the defendants of the House’s charges.

Chief Justice Oliver did not defy acts of the legislature, dally with interns, nor incite an insurrection—except, perhaps, unintentionally. But for two years, he declined the meager compensation offered to him by the colonials in favor of a much more generous salary from the King.

This was enough for radicals—led by John Adams—to claim that Oliver was, in essence, accepting a “continual Bribe” out of “the Corruption and Baseness of his heart, and the sordid Lust of Covetousness.” The Massachusetts House even frothed that, by accepting the royal grant, Oliver would unite the King’s Ministry with the Judiciary, creating that “arbitrary and tyrannical Government.”

The Massachusetts Governor and his Council—the equivalent then of the Senate—refused even to consider the House’s indictment. Oliver was not removed from office. But, stirred up by Adams, Massachusetts citizens removed themselves from Oliver’s courts. Jurors refused to serve, the system of justice began to grind to a halt, and the province was one step closer to revolution.

Kings and Xi Jinpings

Impeachment is a puzzling feature of American politics. An ancient English custom, it holds a much higher place of honor in novelty-loving America. It’s named in the Constitution, but it violates the central Constitutional principle of separation of powers.

Though garbed in judicial robes, it’s strictly a political act. It carries no specific penalty—the indictment is the punishment. It plays into faction and, much like the old Athenian practice of ostracism, strokes democratic envy.

All that said, impeachment reflects the belief that public trust is the foundation for law, and so breach of that trust cannot be defined by law. Peter Oliver committed no crime by taking a salary from his King. Likewise, maybe no laws have been broken by the remarkable favor shown to the Biden family by Xi Jinping. Of course, the violation of public trust requires a public that feels itself violated. The true result of the impeachment of Peter Oliver was that a new public became conscious of itself and its power.

Art by Beck & Stone