ormalities of
justice. When a public functionary is impeached before an English or a
French political tribunal, and is found guilty, the sentence deprives
him ipso facto of his functions, and it may pronounce him to be
incapable of resuming them or any others for the future. But in this
case the political interdict is a consequence of the sentence, and not
the sentence itself. In Europe the sentence of a political tribunal is
to be regarded as a judicial verdict rather than as an administrative
measure. In the United States the contrary takes place; and although the
decision of the Senate is judicial in its form, since the Senators
are obliged to comply with the practices and formalities of a court of
justice; although it is judicial in respect to the motives on which it
is founded, since the Senate is in general obliged to take an offence at
common law as the basis of its sentence; nevertheless the object of the
proceeding is purely administrative. If it had been the intention of
the American legislator to invest a political body with great judicial
authority, its action would not have been limited to the circle of
public functionaries, since the most dangerous enemies of the State may
be in the possession of no functions at all; and this is especially true
in republics, where party influence is the first of authorities, and
where the strength of many a reader is increased by his exercising no
legal power.

If it had been the intention of the American legislator to give
society the means of repressing State offences by exemplary punishment,
according to the practice of ordinary justice, the resources of the
penal code would all have been placed at the disposal of the political
tribunals. But the weapon with which they are intrusted is an imperfect
one, and it can never reach the most dangerous offenders, since men who
aim at the entire subversion of the laws are not likely to murmur at a
political interdict.

The main object of the political jurisdiction which obtains in the
United States is, therefore, to deprive the ill-disposed citizen of
an authority which he has used amiss, and to prevent him from ever
acquiring it again. This is evidently an administrative measure
sanctioned by the formalities of a judicial decision. In this matter
the Americans have created a mixed system; they have surrounded the act
which removes a public functionary with the securities of a political
trial; and they have deprived all politi