But in the cause which your Managers have in charge the circumstances
are the very reverse to what happens in the cases of mere personal
delinquency which come before the [inferior] courts. These courts have
not before them persons who act, and who justify their acts, by the
nature of a despotical and arbitrary power. The abuses stated in our
impeachment are not those of mere individual, natural faculties, but the
abuses of civil and political authority. The offence is that of one who
has carried with him, in the perpetration of his crimes, whether of
violence or of fraud, the whole force of the state,--who, in the
perpetration and concealment of offences, has had the advantage of all
the means and powers given to government for the detection and
punishment of guilt and for the protection of the people. The people
themselves, on whose behalf the Commons of Great Britain take up this
remedial and protecting prosecution, are naturally timid. Their spirits
are broken by the arbitrary power usurped over them, and claimed by the
delinquent as his law. They are ready to flatter the power which they
dread. They are apt to look for favor [from their governors] by covering
those vices in the predecessor which they fear the successor may be
disposed to imitate.
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