With most of the focus in today’s portion of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial focusing on the question of constitutionality, there were a number of references to William Belknap, the secretary of war in the Grant Administration whose impeachment trial was held after his resignation. This is a significant parallel. Both Belknap and Trump were out of office at the beginning of their impeachment trials. I have doubts about the Belknap trial’s practical significance today—there was a headline saying that it made this impeachment trial possible, but I’d like to hear more from constitutional scholars on whether precedent was really an issue here—but it’s an historic anomaly in one of the same ways this trial is an historic anomaly. It bears mentioning.
There’s another impeachment trial that I’d offer bears mentioning. It was not mentioned today, or at least not mentioned in such a way as to appear in a quick Google search. It occurred just 14 years prior to that of Belknap. It’s the impeachment trial of a guy named West Humphreys.
In 1853, West Humphreys was nominated by Franklin Pierce to serve as a judge at the District level of the federal court system. He was confirmed by the Senate.
Nine years later, Humphreys was impeached.
For trying to overthrow the United States.
The exact charges against Humphreys (and I’ll note here that sources for this are the Tennessee Historical Society’s Tennessee Encyclopedia and records of the trial available via the U.S. Government Publishing Office’s) were that he:
- Article 1: Publicly called for secession.
- Article 2: Agreed to Tennessee’s ordinance of secession.
- Article 3: Conspired with others to organize the armed rebellion and “levy war” against the United States.
- Article 4: Conspired with Jefferson Davis to oppose the United States.
- Article 5: Refused to do his job and hold court as a District judge.
- Article 6: Served as a district court judge for the Confederacy, and in that role:
- Specification 1: Caused, “with the intent to oppress,” the unlawful arrest and exile of Perez Dickinson, who refused to swear allegiance to the Confederate States of America.
- Specification 2: Confiscated the property of Andrew Johnson (the Military Governor of Tennessee) and U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Catron.
- Specification 3: Caused the arrest of other American citizens for demonstrating fidelity to the U.S.A. and rejecting the C.S.A.
- Article 7: Caused, “with intent to injure” and through his role as a district court judge for the Confederacy, the unlawful arrest and imprisonment of William G. Brownlow, violating Brownlow’s rights as an American citizen.
Between 36 and 39 senators voted on each article (the states in revolt were not sending senators to Washington at this time, and evidently not every senator voted). Humphreys was convicted, with one exception, on all seven charges. The exception was Specification 2 of Article 6: That he’d illegally confiscated the property of Johnson and Catron.
I won’t enumerate the similarities and differences between the Civil War and last month’s attack on the Capitol. There are many of each. But with Humphreys and Trump, similarities do abound:
- Barring a surprise appearance by Trump, neither will have appeared at his impeachment trial.
- Each rejected the authority of the United States—Humphreys, by seceding from it; Trump, by refusing to accept the results of the election (and subsequent rulings by the courts).
- Neither was in his governmental role at the time of the trial.
- A return to governmental office was not expressly forbidden for either prior to the trial.
Again, this is not to equate Trump and Humphreys. But in terms of historically similar impeachment trials, this probably deserves mention alongside that of Belknap. And as an historic matter, it’s interesting. It was the only impeachment trial held during the Civil War. Was Humphrey the only man in a federal judgeship to commit such offenses?
