In 1797 land speculator Blount, serving as US senator from Tennessee, was discovered to be plotting to invade Spanish-held Louisiana and Florida with British help to facilitate the western spread of the US. Melton (law, U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) recounts his impeachment by the House of Representatives, the first such action since the Constitution was adopted a decade earlier. He notes that because many of the framers of the Constitution took part in the proceedings, the case reveals their original intent. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
At the end of the 1700s, Tennessee Senator William Blount became the first person in the United States to be impeached. Congress first expelled, then impeached the legislator for plotting with England to wrest control of Florida from Spain. In
The First Impeachment, Buckner F. Melton considers William Blount's life and his case's impact on future impeachment proceedings. Melton also puts Blount's crime in context by describing other expansionist intrigues in the old Southwest during that period. These were the years right before the Louisiana Purchase, when "West" meant the Mississippi River region. At the time, Spain claimed Florida, Louisiana, and the land west of the Mississippi River. William Blount was a land speculator who regularly used his political position to expand his wealth. Blount hoped to enrich himself even more by getting rid of Spanish rule in the West and in Florida. When the United States government wouldn't send money and armed forces to help him, he turned to England. Even though England turned him down, Congress deemed conspiring with a foreign government a crime, an act that was not in the best interest of his country.
Because Blount's case occurred only 10 years after the creation of the U.S. Constitution, many questions about the impeachment process had to be worked out during the course of his trial. Among the questions Congress struggled with were: Who can be impeached? Who should run the impeachment trial? How can Congress ensure that impeachment will not be used as a partisan tool? Although Melton's writing style is a bit dry, the story of William Blount should be of interest to legal scholars and people who'd like to learn more about intrigue on the early frontier. --Jill Marquis
