36 of 56 · Maryland
CHASE
A Firebrand's Guide
28 lessons. 4 chapters. In his own words.
He dragged Maryland into independence, then talked himself onto an impeachment. Heat starts the fire. It also burns the house.
Samuel Chase · 1741–1811 · Firebrand · justice · impeached
01
Bring the Heat
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Be the loud man when the room is cool.
“Chase is violent and noisy, but he is honest, and has a good heart, and great abilities.”
John Adams, diary and correspondence · 1774
Old Bacon Face. Florid, furious, useful. Adams did not want him for a dinner partner. He wanted him for Maryland. Heat is a tool. Deploy it where the ice is.
Noise is not the same as bluff.
“We have launched into troubles never before explored, and in the hour of heavy distress Congress repeated their settled purpose to despise all terms short of independence.”
He meant the break. The voice matched the vote. A firebrand who folds in committee is just a cost. A firebrand who stays lit through the count is a weapon.
Ride the circuit between halls.
“He went between Philadelphia and the Maryland Convention as if the two rooms were one argument.”
Maryland and congressional record of Samuel Chase · 1776
Heat without mileage is oratory. He put the miles under it. Annapolis had to move before Philadelphia could. Be the wire.
Take the doomed mission anyway.
“Franklin, Chase, and Carroll of Carrollton were sent to Canada, and Canada would not come.”
Journals of the Continental Congress · 1776
A winter embassy that failed. He still went. Failure on the northern road does not cancel heat at home. Some errands exist to prove you will run them.
Old Bacon Face is a nickname. Wear it.
“Chase is violent and noisy, but he is honest, and has a good heart, and great abilities.”
John Adams, diary and correspondence · 1774
The face got a name because the heat showed. Fine. A cool alias on a hot man is a lie. Let them see the color. Then make the color do Maryland's work, not your vanity's.
Honest noise still has to count a vote.
“In the hour of heavy distress Congress repeated their settled purpose to despise all terms short of independence.”
Volume without a tally is theater. He wanted the break, and he worked the rooms that could instruct a delegation to say so. Heat that cannot count is just weather.
Canada can refuse you. Ride home anyway.
“Franklin, Chase, and Carroll of Carrollton were sent to Canada, and Canada would not come.”
Journals of the Continental Congress · 1776
A failed embassy is still mileage. He did not let Montreal become an excuse to go quiet in Annapolis. Some missions exist to show you will take a winter. Take it. Come back loud.
02
Move Maryland
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First unlock the instructions.
“The Convention of Maryland, on the 28th of June, authorized their deputies to concur in a declaration of independence.”
Proceedings of the Maryland Convention · 1776
Until that week Maryland's men were gagged. Chase, Paca, Stone, Carroll — the work was not a speech in Congress. It was a vote in Annapolis. Free your own delegation or sit down.
A conservative province moves for a respectable riot.
“Maryland was cautious, proprietary, and late. Chase made lateness expensive.”
John Adams on the Maryland delegation · 1776
Planters do not follow a whisper. They follow a man who will be loud in their names and still dine with them. Be the heat they can claim as their own.
Bring the province in before the parchment dries.
“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.”
The Declaration of Independence · 1776
Unanimous required Maryland. Maryland required Chase's kind of pressure. A missing colony on that line is a wound that never closes. Get them in the sentence.
Do not confuse the colony with the governor.
“The people of Maryland, not the proprietary, are to be consulted in this crisis.”
Attributed to the Maryland patriot leadership · 1775
Eden was the last proprietary governor. Chase treated him as weather. The convention was the climate. Always locate the real sovereign, then shout at that.
A gagged delegation is not a delegation.
“Until the 28th of June the Maryland deputies were bound against independence; then the Convention unbound them.”
Proceedings of the Maryland Convention · 1776
Instructions are a leash. He went home and cut it. Oratory in Philadelphia cannot outrun a written prohibition. Change the paper that sent you, or sit on your hands and call it prudence.
Translate the fire into a convention resolve.
“Maryland had to be argued out of reconciliation and into a vote her gentry could survive.”
John Adams on the Maryland delegation · 1776
This was not Boston. Planters needed a theory that did not look like a mob. Heat, here, meant making independence look like law. Translate the fire into a convention resolve. Then you have a province.
Four days of slack in the leash. Then July.
“The Convention of Maryland, on the 28th of June, authorized their deputies to concur in a declaration of independence.”
Proceedings of the Maryland Convention · 1776
Four days of slack in the leash. Then July. A signature without instructions is theater that can be disowned. Get the home house on the record first. Philadelphia is downstream.
03
The Charged Bench
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A judge with a mouth still has a mouth.
“Our Republican constitution will sink into a mobocracy, the worst of all possible governments.”
Samuel Chase, charge to the Baltimore grand jury · 1803
Washington put him on the Supreme Court. He kept campaigning from the bench. Judicial independence is not a license to stump. Heat that won a revolution can indict a court.
Partisan robes are still robes until they are not.
“The independence of the national Judiciary is already shaken to its foundation, and the virtue of the people alone can restore it.”
Samuel Chase, charge to the Baltimore grand jury · 1803
He was not wrong that Jefferson wanted the bench housebroken. He was wrong to pick a grand jury as his pamphlet. Venue matters. The wrong pulpit turns a point into a crime.
Try the defendants. Do not try the century.
“He told counsel they must confine themselves to the facts, the court having already determined the law of treason.”
Record of the Fries trial before Justice Chase · 1800
John Fries and the house tax. Chase squeezed the defense. Strength on the bench is not the same as fairness. A charged bench looks like a weapon. Weapons get impeached.
The robe does not cool the man.
“He is violent and noisy, but he is honest.”
John Adams on Samuel Chase · 1774
Thirty years later the sentence still fit. Character is a climate. Office is a coat. If you cannot turn the temperature down, do not take a job that requires winter.
A charge to a jury is still a speech. Remember that.
“The independence of the national judiciary is already shaken to its foundation.”
Samuel Chase, charge to the Baltimore grand jury · 1803
He said it in a tavern dressed as a courtroom. The robe does not unmake the firebrand. If you cannot resist a stump speech from the bench, you will furnish your enemies a transcript. They will use it.
Mobocracy is a word that will be read back to you.
“Our Republican constitution will sink into a mobocracy.”
Samuel Chase, charge to the Baltimore grand jury · 1803
He named the fear. Jefferson named a prosecution. A judge who campaigns from the chair should not be shocked when politics answers in kind. If you want the robe to be sacred, stop using it as a pamphlet.
Try Callender without becoming the second defendant.
“His conduct of the Callender trial became an article of impeachment.”
Articles of impeachment against Samuel Chase · 1804
Sedition, a Republican printer, a Federalist justice in a hurry. The case was the law of the moment. The manner was the indictment. Procedure is how a charged bench proves it is still a bench. Skip it and you are just heat in wool.
04
Survive the Trial
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Make them prove a crime, not a temperament.
“Impeachment is not a remedy for a political opinion, or this bench is not independent.”
Eight articles. Jefferson wanted him gone. The Senate, full of Jefferson's men, still could not find two-thirds. If they can fire you for being disagreeable, they can fire the law.
Acquittal is a precedent. Spend it carefully.
“The Senate voted to acquit Samuel Chase of all charges.”
Journal of the Senate of the United States · 1805
March 1. Only Supreme Court justice ever impeached. Still there. The republic learned, clumsily, that robes are not electoral. Do not use that shield to become a mob of one.
Stay on the court that tried to throw you off.
“He remained an Associate Justice until his death, six years after the Senate refused to remove him.”
No revenge tour required. No resignation in a huff. The best answer to a political prosecution is competence after it fails. Occupy the chair they could not empty.
Heat starts the fire. It also burns the house.
“Ought this seditious and official attack on the principles of our Constitution to go unpunished?”
Thomas Jefferson to Joseph H. Nicholson, on Chase · 1803
Jefferson, who wrote hostility to tyranny over the mind, went hunting a judge's mind. Chase had earned the hunt. Both men overreached. Survive, then lower the temperature you cannot live without.
Impeach the act. Leave the temper on the bench.
“He was acquitted on every article. The Senate would not make a bad temper a high crime.”
Journal of the Senate of the United States · 1805
Jefferson wanted a precedent that judges serve at the pleasure of the election. The Senate refused it. You may be impossible. You are still not removable for being impossible. That line is the whole of judicial tenure.
Acquittal is not vindication of the mouth. It is of the office.
“The Senate having tried Samuel Chase, associate justice, did not convict.”
Journal of the Senate of the United States · 1805
He kept the seat. He did not become gentle. Do not confuse surviving a trial with having been wise. The precedent is for the next judge, who should be quieter, and safer because this loud one was not removed.
The revenge is attendance. Sit the next term.
“He remained on the Supreme Court until his death in 1811.”
The revenge is attendance. Do not resign to look noble. Do not campaign to look right. Sit. Hear the next case. Heat that outlasts the impeachment has made its point without another speech.