He has been told, as report
goes, that they would not have confidence enough in him to appoint him.
The desire of inspiring them with more, seems the only way to account
for the eclat which he chooses to give to his conversion. You will have
seen the disgusting proceedings in the case of Lyon: if they would have
accepted even of a commitment to the Serjeant it might have been
had. But to get rid of his vote was the most material object. These
proceedings must degrade the General Government, and lead the people
to lean more on their State governments, which have been sunk under the
early popularity of the former. This day the question of the jury in
cases of impeachment comes on. There is no doubt how it will go. The
general division of the Senate is twenty-two and ten; and under the
probable prospect of what it will for ever be, I see nothing in the
mode of proceeding by impeachment but the most formidable weapon for the
purposes of dominant faction that ever was contrived. It would be the
most effectual one of getting rid of any man whom they consider as
dangerous to their views, and I do not know that we could count on one
third in an emergency. All depends then on the House of Representatives,
who are the impeachers; and there the majorities are of one, two, or
three only; and these sometimes one way and sometimes another: in a
question of pure party they have the majority, and we do not know what
circumstances may turn up to increase that majority temporarily, it not
permanently.
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