Gerald R. Ford Quotes
An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office.
Ford, Gerald R. "Speech in the House of Representatives." 15 Apr. 1970. Congressional Record, vol. 116, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970, p. 11913.
The debate was about the unlimited pardon power of the President. Madison argued that the check was the impeachment power. However, Presidents had tended to make large numbers of pardons just before they leave office so the impeachment power works only as a check for the beginning and middle part of their term.
Seven states was then a majority of the states.
The convention turned down the constitution and would not ratify it until the Bill of Rights was passed later.
Parliament had developed a formal mechanism of removing officials in extreme circumstances. It was borrowed for the U. S. Constitution. See {584256}.
Morris had it wrong. He perceived that the Senate could not be a check on the House or the President because to him, the Senate was the house of aristocrats and America really did not have aristocrats since there was no nobility so that there would be no difference between Representatives and Senators-–they both were drawn from the same egalitarian population. He missed however that the Senate, being elected by states, would represent a broader constituency than a member of the House, and because of this broader perspective, would come to see issues in nationalist and state terms while Representatives would perceive the same issues in local terms. Hence the two houses of Congress became effective checks on each other, and the Senate on the President because not of different social or economic class, but of broader and narrower perspectives. It was not what Senators were but what they would become once they were elected and had to be reelected.
Ford was then a Congressman and there was a conservative inspired impeachment probe of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was an American politician and attorney who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of the Republican Party, Ford previously served as the 40th vice president of the United States from 1973 to 1974. To date, Ford is the only person to have served as both vice president and president without being elected to either office by the Electoral College.
