practice law on the Eastern
Shore of Maryland and in the adjoining counties of Virginia, where he
won an immediate success, especially in criminal cases. At a single
term of court, out of thirty defendants he procured the acquittal of
twenty-nine, while the thirtieth, indicted for murder, was convicted of
manslaughter. In 1805 Martin was the acknowledged head of the
American Bar, but at the same time he was undoubtedly a drunkard and a
spendthrift. With an income of $10,000 a year, he was always in need.
His mediocre stature, thinning locks, and undistinguished features
created an impression which was confirmed by his slovenly attire
and ungrammatical speech, which seemed "shackled by a preternatural
secretion of saliva." Here, indeed, for ugliness and caustic tongue was
"the Thersites of the law." Yet once he was roused to action, his great
resources made themselves apparent: a memory amounting to genius, a
boyish delight in the rough-and-tumble of combat, a wealth of passion,
kept in perfect curb till the enemy was already in rout before solid
argument and then let loose with destroying effect. This child of nature
was governed in his practice of the law less by retainers than by his
personal loves and hatreds. Samuel Chase he loved and Thomas Jefferson
he hated, and though his acquaintance with criminals had furnished him
with a vituperative vocabulary of some amplitude, he considered no other
damnation quite so scathing as to call a man "as great a scoundrel as
Tom Jefferson."

The impeachers had no one whom they could pit against this "unprincipled
and impudent Federalist bulldog," as Jefferson called him; and in other
ways, too, from the first their lot was not easy. For one thing, they
could not agree among themselves as to the proper scope of impeachment
under the Constitution. Randolph, the leader of the House managers, and
Campbell adhered in essence to Giles's theory. But Rodney and Nicholson,
both much abler lawyers, openly disavowed such latitudinarian doctrine.
In a general way, their view of the matter may be stated thus: Because
judges of the United States are guaranteed continuance in office only
during "good behavior," and because impeachment is the only method
of removal recognized by the Constitution, the "high crimes and
misdemeanors" for which impeachment is the constitutional resource must
include all cases of willful misconduct in office, whether indictable or
not. This seems sound theory and ap