Dear Jon,
Your query reminded me of something I hadn't thought of in years. Judge John Pickering was impeached for being alcoholic and insane. (Lawyers apparently get a pass for one or the other, but not both in combination.) This was the first time I can think of that alcoholism came up in a serious political way in any branch of the new constitutional government. The Wikipedia sketch appears below.
John Pickering (22 September <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/September_22> 1737 <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/1737> - 11 April <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/April_11> 1805 <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/1805> ) served as Chief Justice of the New Hampshire <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/New_Hampshire> Superior Court <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/Superior_Court> and as Judge for the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_District_of_New_Hampshire> . He was the first federal official to have been removed from office upon conviction upon impeachment <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/Impeachment> .
Born in Newington, New Hampshire, Pickering studied law at Harvard <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/Harvard> and was admitted to the bar after graduating in 1761. In 1787 he was elected to be a member of the New Hamsphire delegation to the Constitutional Convention <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Constitutional_Convention> , but he declined to serve. He was appointed in 1790 to the New Hampshire Superior Court where he eventually served as Chief Justice.
Pickering assumed the position of Judge on the Federal District Court in April 1795 <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/1795> after an attempt to remove him from the New Hampshire Superior Court due to illness; This attempt had become bogged down in political problems and therefore the state convinced President George Washington <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/George_Washington> to appoint him to the relatively low workload post of the Federal District Court.
He recovered from his illness and for the first few years served the Court well. In 1800 <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/1800> problems emerged since he was no longer attending Court as was expected. On 25 April <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/April_25> 1801 <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/1801> Court staff wrote to the Judges of the Federal Appeals Court <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/United_States_court_of_appeals> for the First Circuit to send a temporary replacement for the Judge on the grounds that he had gone insane.
As a stop-gap measure, Circuit Judge Jeremiah Smith <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/Jeremiah_Smith> sat for part of the 1801 session of the Court. In March 1802, Pickering returned, adjourned the Court's business to the next day and then disappeared again. He had reappeared by June of that year and sat to consider United States v. Eliza, a case concerning a ship seized in violation of revenue laws. Allegedly, Pickering was drunk and raved profanities throughout the trial.
Political controversy waged in the Congress with Federalists <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/Federalist> accusing Democratic-Republicans <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/Democratic-Republicans> of trying to usurp the Constitution by attempting to remove the Judge from office though he had committed neither high crimes nor misdemeanors as required by the Constitution.
On 4 February <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/February_4> 1803 <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/1803> President Thomas Jefferson <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson> sent evidence to the U.S. House of Representatives <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/U.S._House_of_Representatives> who voted to impeach Pickering on 2 March <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/March_2> , 1803 on charges of drunkenness and unlawful rulings. The U.S. Senate <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/U.S._Senate> tried the Impeachment the next year beginning 4 January <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/January_4> 1804 <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/1804> and convicted him of all charges presented by the House by a vote of 19 to 7 on 12 March <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/March_12> 1804 <https://webaccess.unf.edu/wiki/1804> .
David T. Courtwright
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
________________________________
From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society on behalf of Jon Miller
Sent: Wed 10/4/2006 12:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: alcoholism in US Congress
Thomas F. Marshall, a Whig from Kentucky, may have been the first
degenerate Congressman to blame alcohol. He served in the
Twenty-Seventh Congress (1841-1843). Does anyone know of an earlier
example?
His sympathetic biographer, surveying the whole of Marshall's life,
began: "Character, I may say at once, was Tom Marshall's weak point."
(See the March, 1874 number of the Galaxy magazine, which contains
Paul R. Shipman's long article republished later as A Handful of
Bitter Herbs).
Marshall was a heavy drinker; he described himself as "one of your
spreeing gentry." His drinking habits were described and attacked in
the press; he was accused of being drunk on the House floor. In May
1842, he gave a pair of famous temperance speeches announcing his
(short-lived) conversion to Washingtonian teetotalism. Marshall was
not re-elected.
Here are a few quotes from a speech he gave to the Great Temperance
Meeting of May, 1842 in New York. They are remarkable, in part, for
the way he brags and jokes about his drinking. He also concedes that
yes, he was drunk on the House floor. The quotes are copied from a
pamphlet I read at the Library Company of Philadelphia.
"Well, then, gentlemen, within all the broad territory of of the
Union, there does not breathe a man who knew less or cared less about
temperance societies, or the progress of the temperance cause than
your humble servant did some four months ago. I had never been in a
temperance meeting in my life, and I make the acknowledgement with
shame and contrition. I never had been in a Temperance meeting in my
life, and if I picked up a Temperance paper, or a political paper
with anything about Temperance in it, I threw it to one side as
smacking of fanaticism and as altogether beneath the attention of a
gentleman of my vast ambition and extraordinary talents! (Loud
laughter and applause.) (page 2)
. . .
"There is one point, however, that it may not be improper to touch
upon. With regard to this subject I have necessarily had to speak of
myself. I have said more on this subject perhaps than I ought to
have said (cries of "no, no,") and certainly more than I should have
said, had I not heard that I was expected to allude somewhat to my
own case, and from what has been said in the public prints. I found
from them that some little portion of my private history, which I had
hoped would ever have been private, was known to you. A good deal
has been said that is the truth in this matter (here he paused, and
continued in a solemn tone,) and far more than the truth was told
about me. And that, too, is one of the evils of intemperance.
(Cheers and laughter.) Bad as it is, in its best estate, and bad
enough that is, God knows, a man has always friends or enemies enough
to make it a great deal worse. (Cheers and laughter.) In my case, I
am modest enough to admit--my case was bad enough, but it was'nt
[sic] so bad as was stated. (Cheers.) But oh, if my example could
bring back to this cause any one who has now commenced the career of
intemperance--if it could only bring back one human being who has
commenced such a career, he is perfectly welcome to the benefit of
all my experience. (Terrific cheering.) (page 5)
. . .
"The papers . . . say that when I made a speech [to the House of
Representatives] I was pretty comfortably and most considerably
inebriated. (Cheers and laughter.) And, in all those five or six
speeches, except one, I give you my honor as a gentleman, I was as
sober as a judge. (Loud cheers and laughter.) And some of those
speeches cost me a good deal of time and considerable mental labor
and activity." (page 10)
(Citation: Thomas F. Marshall, Two Speeches of the Hon. Thomas F.
Marshall, of Kentucky, before the Great Temperance Meeting, held in
the City of New York, on the 5th and 6th of May, 1842. Louisville,
Ky.: W. N. Haldeman, 1842.)
-- Jon Miller, Dept. of English, Univ. of Akron, Akron OH 44325-1906
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