pears today to be established theory.
But sound or not, the managers of the Republicans were not a unit
in urging it, while their opponents put forward with confidence and
unanimity the theory that "high crimes and misdemeanors" were always
indictable offenses.

More calamitous still for the accusers of Chase was the way in which,
when the evidence began to come in, the case against him started
crumpling at the corners. Lewis, who had been Fries's attorney and whose
testimony they had chiefly relied upon to prove the judge's unfairness
on that occasion, had not only acknowledged that his memory was "not
very tenacious" after so great a lapse of time but had further admitted
that he had really dropped the case because he thought it "more likely
that the President would pardon him [Fries] after having been convicted
without having counsel than if he had." Similarly Hay, whose repeated
efforts to bring the question of the constitutionality of the Sedition
Act before the jury had caused the rupture between court and counsel
in Callender's case, owned that he had entertained "but little hopes of
doing Callender any good" but had "wished to address the public on the
constitutionality of the law." Sensations multiplied on every side. A
man named Heath testified that Chase had told the marshal to strike all
Democrats from the panel which was to try Callender; whereupon a second
witness called to confirm this testimony stated facts which showed the
whole story to be a deliberate fabrication. The story that Chase
had attacked the Administration at Baltimore was also substantially
disproved by the managers' own witnesses. But the climax of absurdity
was reached in the fifth and sixth articles of impeachment, which
were based on the assumption that an act of Congress had required
the procedure in Callender's case to be in accordance with the law of
Virginia. In reply to this argument Chase's attorneys quickly pointed
out that the statute relied upon applied only to actions between
citizens of different States!

The final arguments began on the 20th of February. The first speech in
behalf of Chase was delivered by Joseph Hopkinson, a young Philadelphia
attorney, whose effort stirred the admiration of Federalists and
Republicans alike. He dwelt upon "the infinite importance" of the
implications of this case for the future of the Republic, contrasted the
frivolity of the charges brought against Chase with the magnitude of the
crimes