Read our 1973 essay by then-Sen. Richard Goodwin on Congress' obligation to impeach
“No rational man can believe that the Administration will voluntarily disclose evidence that might drive it from office and send its members to jail. Even God did not receive a voluntary disclosure from Adam about the apple, although, like Congress, He already knew the answer,” writes Richard Goodwin.Richard Goodwin is perhaps best known as the brash special assistant to Senator, and then President, Kennedy.
But even if he were a “crook,” that fact alone does not make his impeachment necessary. The country could survive a “crooked” President, it might even flourish, although it would set an unhealthy precedent to allow a known thief to remain as President. Lyndon Johnson made millions of dollars from public service, but it was the war in Vietnam and not the television station in Austin which was his great offense against America.
The issue is now one of politics: Have decades of erosion and years of subservience stripped Congress of the will to perform its constitutional obligation? Or have so many of its members become implicated in the general corruption of the time that they are afraid to expose and censure the abuses of others? Senator Gurney’s militant support of the Administration during the Watergate hearings is less of a mystery now that we have learned of his own involvement in kickbacks and secret funds.
Against a wide variety of restraints, fears and cautions, there stands only the constitutional obligation of the Congress to defend the principles of representative democracy and guard the liberties of the people. Most of the strategy of evasion has been more subtle, consisting, in large part, of misrepresenting the nature and function of impeachment and the evidence needed to justify impeachment; while suggesting that courts or congressional committees are more appropriate or effective ways to proceed.
Impeachment is not a ritual of condemnation, a formal confirmation of established guilt, but a method for determining whether a suspected President has abused or corrupted his office — a “National Inquest.” It is, indeed, the only way to sweep away the apparatus of secrecy and control, deception and privilege, coercion and promise of reward, through which the President can conceal his conduct.
Although congressional committees have helped to eliminate any doubt of the need for a National Inquest, the inquest in itself is beyond their power. No serious challenge to the President’s right to remain in office can be expected from a group which must request, and be refused, an invitation to visit the accused in the hope he might tell them what he had done.
The most prominent of the “Watergate” offenses involves the 1972 election. President Nixon would probably have won without the services of amateur and professional criminals — on a scale still undetermined—but that does not make his election democratic. The right to a free election belongs to the American people.
A well-known senator said in conversation that, “We all know that he should be impeached but liberal Democrats shouldn’t take the lead.” The sentiment is not un-common. Indeed, for a while it seemed as if everyone in Congress was waiting for Barry Goldwater to impeach the President. But the President’s radical attack on the democratic structure is dangerous and offensive to liberalism and conservatism alike. Liberals are not excused from their sworn oath to defend the Constitution.
The power of impeachment was intended as a final safeguard against executive excess, not to protect Congress against the President, but the people against the state. It was not just a “power,” but an obligation of the Congress to defend democratic society against a corrupt or overweening Chief Executive.
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