Y With an Appendix containing, inter alia, an abstract BY ALEX. SIMPSON, JR., LL.D. OF THE PHILADELPHIA BAR 1916 WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE LAW ASSOCIATION OF PHILADELPHIA E.W. PREFACE. In the main the first sixty pages of this book were prepared by the writer as a brief in connection with the Archbald Impeachment Trial, without any idea that it would ever be published. The first great question discussed therein, viz., Can a public official be impeached for other than an indictable offence?, was not used at the trial because his colleagues and client deemed it unwise to concede that for other than criminal "misdemeanors" an impeachment would lie. That portion of the book which relates to the impressions gathered at that trial, and to the remedies which may be applied to avoid the unnecessary waste of time therein experienced, was written after the writer was requested to put the matter in form for publication. The book itself, aside from the Appendix, was published in the "University of Pennsylvania Law Review and American Law Register" for May and June, 1916. With the Appendix it is now published at the request of those who read those articles. The Appendix contains the only complete list of the English Impeachment Trials which has ever been published, so far as the writer is aware. It was made complete through the courtesy of Cuthbert Headlam, Esq., Secretary of the House of Lords, who sent to the writer typewritten copies of the articles of impeachment in a number of cases, as copied by or for him from the original records of that House. To him the writer is deeply indebted; as he is also to the Hon. Hampton L. Carson for permission to use his magnificent library of English Reports. It has been said that the subject of impeachments is one of too little practical importance to justify its publication. Of that each person will have to judge for himself. Perhaps to some one it will give pleasure. Perhaps it may relieve some one of a little labor in a future Federal Impeachment, if any there be. In either event it will have fulfilled the law of service and the writer will be content. August, 1916. Alex. Simpson, Jr. |
