The charge of high crimes and misdemeanors covers allegations of misconduct by officials. Offenses by officials also include ordinary crimes, but perhaps with different standards of proof and punishment than for non-officials, on the grounds that more is expected of officials by their oaths of office.
United Kingdom
The impeachment of the
King's Chancellor,
Michael de la Pole, 1st Earl of Suffolk in 1386 was the first case to use this charge.
One charge under this heading alleged that de la Pole broke a promise to
Parliament
In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
to follow the advice of a committee regarding improvement of the
kingdom. Another charge said that because he failed to pay a ransom for
Ghent
Ghent ( ; ; historically known as ''Gaunt'' in English) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the Provinces of Belgium, province ...
, the city fell to the French.
The 1450 impeachment of
William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk
William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk (16 October 1396 – 2 May 1450), nicknamed Jackanapes, was an English magnate, statesman and military commander during the Hundred Years' War. He became a favourite of Henry VI of England, and consequent ...
, a descendant of Michael, was the next to allege charges under this title. He was charged with using his influence to obstruct justice as well as
cronyism
Cronyism is a specific form of in-group favoritism, the spoils system practice of partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations. ...
and wasting public money. Other charges against him included acts of high treason.
[
Impeachment fell out of use after 1459, but Parliament revived it in the early 17th century to try the King's ministers. In 1621, Parliament impeached the King's ]Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...
, Sir Henry Yelverton, for high crimes and misdemeanors. The charges included failing to prosecute after starting lawsuit
A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...
s and using authority before it was properly his.
In 1640, at the beginning of the Long Parliament, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (13 April 1593 (New Style, N.S.)12 May 1641), was an English people, English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. He served in Parliament of England, Parliament ...
, was impeached for "high misdemeanours" regarding his conduct in Ireland. Despite the repeated assurances of King Charles I, Strafford was eventually executed ("Put not your trust in princes.") the following year.
After the Restoration, the scope of the charge grew to include negligence
Negligence ( Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate care expected to be exercised in similar circumstances.
Within the scope of tort law, negligence pertains to harm caused by the violation of a duty of care through a neg ...
and abuse of power or trust while in office. For example, charges in the impeachment of Edward Russell, 1st Earl of Orford
Admiral of the Fleet Edward Russell, 1st Earl of Orford, (1653 – 26 November 1727) was a Royal Navy officer and politician. After serving as a junior officer at the Battle of Solebay during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, he served as a captai ...
in 1701 included many violations of trust in his positions. In this case, he abused his position in the Privy Council to make profits for himself; as Treasurer of the Navy he embezzled funds; and as Admiral of the Fleet
An admiral of the fleet or shortened to fleet admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, usually equivalent to field marshal and marshal of the air force. An admiral of the fleet is typically senior to an admiral.
It is also a generic ter ...
he got a commission for the pirate William Kidd
William Kidd (c. 1645 – 23 May 1701), also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd, was a Scottish-American privateer. Conflicting accounts exist regarding his early life, but he was likely born in Dundee and later settled in N ...
.
United States
"High crimes and misdemeanors" is a phrase from Section 4 of Article Two of the United States Constitution
Article Two of the United States Constitution establishes the executive branch of the federal government, which carries out and enforces federal laws. Article Two vests the power of the executive branch in the office of the President of the Un ...
: "The President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
, Vice President
A vice president or vice-president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vi ...
and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment
Impeachment is a process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements.
In Eur ...
for, and Conviction of, Treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...
, Bribery
Bribery is the corrupt solicitation, payment, or Offer and acceptance, acceptance of a private favor (a bribe) in exchange for official action. The purpose of a bribe is to influence the actions of the recipient, a person in charge of an official ...
, or other ''high Crimes and Misdemeanors''."
"High," in the legal and common vocabulary of the 17th and 18th centuries of "high crimes," is the activity by or against those who have special duties acquired by taking an oath of office that is not shared with ordinary persons. A high crime can be done only by someone in a unique position of authority, which is political, who does things to circumvent justice. The phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors," used together, was a common phrase when the U.S. Constitution was written and did not require any stringent or demanding criteria for determining guilt. The phrase was historically used to cover an extensive range of crimes.
The Judiciary Committee's 1974 report "The Historical Origins of Impeachment" stated: "'High Crimes and Misdemeanors' has traditionally been considered a 'term of art
Jargon, or technical language, is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The conte ...
', like such other constitutional phrases as 'levying war' and 'due process.' The Supreme Court has held that such phrases must be construed, not according to modern usage, but according to what the framers meant when they adopted them. In 1807, Chief Justice John Marshall
John Marshall (September 24, 1755July 6, 1835) was an American statesman, jurist, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth chief justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remai ...
wrote of the phrase "levying war":
Since 1386, the English Parliament had used the term "high crimes and misdemeanors" to describe one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of "high crimes and misdemeanors" were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, helping "suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament," etc.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...
asserted that the power of impeachment and removal was necessary for those times when the Executive "rendered himself obnoxious," and the Constitution should provide for the "regular punishment of the Executive when his conduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal when he should be unjustly accused." James Madison
James Madison (June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the ...
said that "impeachment... was indispensable" to defend the community against "the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate." With a single executive, Madison argued, unlike a legislature whose collective nature provided security, "loss of capacity or corruption was more within the compass of probable events, and either of them might be fatal to the Republic."
The process of impeaching someone in the House of Representatives and convicting in the Senate is complex, made to be the balance against efforts to remove people from office for minor reasons that could easily be determined by the standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors". It was George Mason
George Mason (October 7, 1792) was an American planter, politician, Founding Father, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, where he was one of three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution. His wr ...
who offered up the term "high crimes and misdemeanors" as one of the criteria to remove public officials who abuse their office. Their original intentions can be gleaned by the phrases and words that were proposed before, such as "high misdemeanor," "maladministration," or "other crime." Edmund Randolph said impeachment should be reserved for those who "misbehave." Charles Cotesworth Pinckney said, It should be reserved "for those who behave amiss, or betray their public trust." As can be seen from all these references to "high crimes and misdemeanors," the definition or its rationale does not relate to specific offenses. This gives much freedom of interpretation to the House of Representatives and the Senate. Constitutional law, by nature, is not concerned with being specific. The courts, through precedence and the legislature, through lawmaking, make constitutional provisions clear. In this case, the legislature (the House of Representatives and the Senate) acts as a court and can create a precedent.
In Federalist No. 65, Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 dur ...
said, "those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself."
The first impeachment conviction by the United States Senate
The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...
was in 1804 of John Pickering, a judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, for chronic intoxication. Federal judges have been impeached and removed from office for tax evasion
Tax evasion or tax fraud is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to red ...
, conspiracy to solicit a bribe, and making false statements
Making false statements () is the common name for the United States federal process crime laid out in Section 1001 of Title 18 of the United States Code, which generally prohibits knowingly and willfully making false or fraudulent statements, or ...
to a grand jury.
President Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. The 16th vice president, he assumed the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a South ...
was impeached on February 24, 1868, in the United U.S. House of Representatives on eleven articles of impeachment detailing his "high crimes and misdemeanors",[The Trial of Andrew Johnson. On Articles of Impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives](_blank)
in accordance with Article Two of the United States Constitution. (The Senate fell one vote short of conviction.) The House's primary charge against Johnson was with violation of the Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress the previous year. Specifically, he had removed Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War
The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the ...
from office and replaced him with John Schofield, but it was unclear if Johnson had violated the act as Stanton was nominated by President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...
and not by Johnson.
During the impeachment of Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton, the List of presidents of the United States, 42nd president of the United States, was Federal impeachment in the United States, impeached by the United States House of Representatives of the 105th United States Congress on Decem ...
in 1999, White House Counsel
The White House Counsel is a senior staff appointee of the president of the United States whose role is to advise the president on all legal issues concerning the president and their administration. The White House counsel also oversees the Off ...
Charles Ruff described a "narrow" interpretation of "high crimes and misdemeanors" as requiring "a standard that the framers intentionally set at this extraordinarily high level to ensure that only the most serious offenses and in particular those that subverted our system of government would justify overturning a popular election". Writing in 1999, Mark R. Slusar commented that the narrow interpretation seemed most common among legal scholars and senators.
Alejandro Mayorkas
Alejandro Nicolas Mayorkas (born November 24, 1959) is an American attorney and government official who was the seventh United States secretary of homeland security, serving from 2021 until 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, Mayorkas previ ...
was impeached in 2024 but the Senate ended the trial without determining guilt after deciding that the articles of impeachment did not allege high crimes and misdemeanors and so did not constitute a valid impeachment.
See also
* High misdemeanor
*Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain. Forms of corruption vary but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influen ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:High Crimes And Misdemeanours
English law
Law of the United Kingdom
Parliament of England
Parliament of Great Britain
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Law of the United States
United States federal impeachment