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Ongoing Debate with Impeachment, Article II Section IV – Holden MacDougall

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Amendment II Section IV, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

The American Revolution resolved in a separation from Britain and gave rise to the need for a new governmental structure without a monarch. In an attempt to create a decentralized government with separate and interdependent powers, the framers viewed it as necessary to give congress the power of impeachment. It is a part of the system of checks and balances.

This clause is responding to fears of unchecked and tyrannical power in the government, as well as ideas brought about by the absolutist monarchy french revolution. It also echoes theories of John Locke, Rousseau, and Montesquieu. The commonly understood meaning of the impeachment clause is that a government official of the United States (typically a federal judge, President, or Vice President.) can be impeached and removed from office if convicted of committing a serious crime and/or abuse of office. Various interpretations of the impeachment clause arise when one considers the type of crime being committed, and whether that crime relates to the public office or private life of the accused person.

An interpretation that would make impeachment a over powerful political weapon is if impeachment concerned both the public and private life of a government official, and if any forms of misconduct or misbehavior were accepted as ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’. A narrower interpretation considers only treason, bribery, and crimes committed relating to a government official’s public office to be an impeachable offense. Some scholars believe that a broad interpretation of the impeachment power would allow a single political party or opponent to potentially abuse this power to eliminate select people  by convicting them of vague forms of misconduct.

This would make impeachment also a very powerful tool for Congress ( more specifically the senate, which has the power to try all impeachments). The case, Nixon v. United States (1993), involved the debate over impeachment and the power it gives to the Senate. The ruling affirms that impeachment power is solely assigned to the Senate and House of Representatives. This case relates to the debate over the interpretation of  “high crimes and misdemeanors” and how much power this phrase could give to those in the Senate. Since Nixon v. United States deemed Senate impeachment trials ‘non-justiciable’, meaning that they are not able to be resolved through law alone, it indicates that impeachment trials concern acts that do not fall under the law, rather are acts of misconduct, which highlights the importance of defining what acts are ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’.

This provision connects to the writings of Montesquieu, who argued for separation of powers in government, because the impeachment power is part of a system of checks and balances that is core to the U.S. constitution, and to Rousseau, who expressed that government should serve the general will of the people, because impeachment concerns those whom the people elect the government. I find the interpretation that ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ mentioned article II, section IV only concern matters of public office that harm the well-being of the citizens more persuasive than impeachment on the grounds of a matter of private life because, like with any job, a person is typically fired based acts committed and relating to the workplace that affects their job and the company, rather than because of acts associated with one’s private life.

I would advocate amending the phrase “other high crimes and misdemeanors”. This area is the primary source of divergent interpretations of this clause because of its vagueness, so amending it would help to clarify the types of crimes worthy of impeachment.

Article IV: The Guarantee Clause

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The Guarantee Clause (Article IV) responds to and prevents oppressive types of governments like monarchies. The Guarantee Clause reflects the framers’ aim to ensure democratic principles in the United States and maintain a representative government in each state. The Guarantee Clause states that every state must have a republican form of government. This ensures that no state inflicts a monarchy, dictatorship, aristocracy, or stratocracy. The clause does not detail the conditions of the republican government (specifically regarding voting requirements), but it does guarantee federal protection to all states from foreign invasions and domestic violence. 

Some scholars interpret this clause as a finite check on the federal government’s interference with the states’ autonomy and, specifically, enabled each state to set appropriate requirements for state and local elections. Others interpret this provision to explain that the federal government can interfere with states’ voting requirements if the conditions disenfranchise part of their population. Scholars argue that post Reconstruction Era, specifically in places where African American’s made up at least 40% of the population, the Guarantee Clause was not upheld, disenfranchising African Americans.    

Texas v. White (1891) provides some context for this interpretation, as the ruling dictated that the newly freed African Americans would become part of the people; thus, they were included in the republic and entitled to vote. Subsequently, Chin utilizes Ratliff v. Beale, which explained how and why Mississippi disenfranchised African Americans.

They declared that the newly enfranchised race (who were greater in numbers) lacked the intelligence and governmental instinct to complete these public services. This acknowledges Mississippi’s “problem” because African Americans comprised most of the population. Furthermore, the elected government personnel would not reflect who the white people desired to hold power in the state. By claiming that Black people did not have sufficient intelligence, the Mississippi Constitutional Convention addressed this problem by creating literacy tests and poll taxes to prevent African Americans from voting.

With these two cases in mind, African Americans, who made up the majority of the population, did not vote; thus, allowing Mississippi and other former Confederate states to run on the minority vote. Finally, in United States v. Mississippi (1965), the United States acknowledges the systematic disenfranchisement of African Americans and, ergo, states running on the minority vote.

The Supreme Court case Oregon v. Mitchell (1970) ruled that Congress could change the age requirement only for federal elections, not state or local ones, as it was beyond Congress’s authority. This ruling supports interpretations regarding states’ autonomy as it prevented the federal government from impeding Oregon’s rights.

Although the 24th Amendment (1964) abolished literacy tests and polling taxes, Chin’s claim extrapolates to current forms of disenfranchisement like gerrymandering. It provokes readers to question if the federal government’s allowance of states’ gerrymandering violates the Guarantee Clause. The Guarantee Clause reflects Lockean ideas of popular sovereignty in that each state runs on a republican form of government where the people have control through elections. Similarly, the provision incorporates Rousseau’s idea of the general will, as the clause guarantees that states govern according to the majority vote.

Article IV – Guarantee Clause

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The Guarantee Clause, Article IV Section IV, explains that the United States requires every state to have a republican form of government, meaning elective government and therefore majority rule. The clause also ensures each state will be federally protected against invasions and domestic unrest or violence. The Guarantee Clause was a response to the country’s recent history. Newly independent from the monarchy, the Constitution framers saw guaranteeing majority rule as crucial to protecting the country from returning to a monarchy or establishing a dictatorship or military rule. In addition, federal protection against invasions was also in mind after the American Revolution. Federal protection against domestic unrest or violence is seen as a direct response to Shays’ Rebellion of 1786-1787 when Massachusetts farmers led an armed uprising, and Congress was unable to deploy troops from other states to stop them. These recent events likely influenced the drafters of the Constitution to include these protections as a “guarantee.” 

Matters of debate concerning the Guarantee Clause center around the tension between a federal guarantee of majority rule and state autonomy to govern themselves. For instance, in the case, Oregon v. Mitchell in 1970, the Supreme Court decided that the federal government was limited to setting a minimum voting age for federal elections only. The Twenty-Sixth Amendment overturned this case, setting a minimum age of 18 across all elections, state and federal. Similarly, Amendments, XV, XIX, and XXIV declare that state elections may not discriminate by race or sex, or charge poll taxes, respectively. Another debate is related to the disenfranchisement of African Americans during Reconstruction. After the Civil War, African Americans were the majority in Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, which did not allow them to vote. This disenfranchisement was a violation of the Guarantee Clause as majority rule was obstructed. While the Guarantee Clause obligates the federal government to step in, Congress does not have authority to police state elections. Similarly, the question of whether the Guarantee Clause should protect against voter suppression is also a matter of state versus federal authority. Voter suppression undermines the fundamental principles of representative democracy by limiting access to the ballot. It can be argued that the Guarantee Clause should include protecting citizens’ rights to vote freely and without discrimination. Dictating how polls are run in state elections, however, could be considered infringing on state autonomy.

In the debate concerning federal protection against voter suppression, I find the argument that guaranteeing a republican form of government for states means guaranteeing protection against voter suppression to be most persuasive. Federally protecting voters is difficult, however, as it can be considered encroaching on state autonomy. Federally standardizing the polling process across states would protect against voter suppression but takes away from states’ autonomy to run their own elections. Aside from this issue, having different state polling processes protects state elections from fraud or external interference as it makes elections harder to systematically hack. The debates surrounding the Guarantee Clause capture the tension in balancing federal and state power.