BY DONALD M. ROTHBERG
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Only in times of political and constitutional stress are Americans reminded of the first Earl of Suffolk's dubious role in history. The minister to England's King Richard II was the first official to be impeached.
In the 612 years since the earl's ouster by a hostile Parliament, legislators and scholars have debated without much agreement on what constitutes grounds for impeaching an executive and removing him from office.
With the House moving toward an impeachment inquiry against President Clinton, the debate over the meaning of "high crimes and misdemeanors" is being renewed.
When Gerald Ford was a Michigan congressman, he told the House that an impeachable offense was "whatever a majority of the House considers it to be." But he added that in the case of a president, it "would indeed require crimes of the magnitude of treason and bribery."
During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, delegates argued about how much power to give the president and whether the document should include the means of removing him from office.
According to James Madison's notes of the closed deliberations, the length of the presidential term was originally left blank. The first proposal was that it be made three years. Later the convention approved a seven-year term with the president ineligible for re-election. Ultimately that became four years with no limit on re-election. (The two-term limit was added as the 22nd Amendment.)
But what about removing the president?
One proposal was that "the executive be made removable by the National Legislature on the request of a majority of the legislatures of individual states."
In the Federalist Papers, the essays written by Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to defend and explain the proposed constitution, Hamilton wrote that basis for impeachment would be "the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust."
He added that the process was essentially political, and therefore "there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt."
On one point, there is agreement throughout history. High crimes and misdemeanors as a basis for impeachment need not be crimes under the law.
