Samuel Chase Impeachment - Significance

Congress for the first and only time exercised its constitutional prerogative to try a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Samuel Chase was born in Somerset County, Maryland, in April of 1741. During the next 70 years, until his death in 1811, he would become one of America's most famous and controversial founding fathers.

Chase was active in politics from an early age, and was elected to colonial Maryland's Assembly on the strength of his anti-British platform. Chase was Maryland's delegate to the Continental Congress of 1774 in Philadelphia and was one of the signers of the 1776 Declaration of Independence. After fighting in the Revolutionary War, during which he became friends with George Washington, Chase returned to Maryland. Chase used his influence in the Federalist party to further his judicial career, and he swiftly rose through a succession of ever more prestigious posts. Chase was appointed presiding justice of Baltimore's Criminal Court. Then in 1791 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Maryland Court of Appeals. Finally in 1796 he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Chase's Supreme Court nomination had George Washington's personal backing.

From the Maryland courts to the Supreme Court, Chase was an openly Federalist judge and he never hid his political loyalties. He zealously enforced the Federalist-sponsored Alien and Sedition Acts, and supported the strict prosecution of persons involved in anti-government demonstrations and allegedly treasonous activities. Chase presided at several trials involving supporters of his fellow founding father and presidential contender Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was the candidate of the opposing Democratic-Republican Party, and won the hotly contested election of 1800.