Samuel Chase

Written by four Maryland historians, Stormy Patriot follows Chase from provincial Annapolis and Revolutionary politics through the Continental Congress, state judgeships, Supreme Court service, and impeachment. Especially strong on Maryland institutions, personality, and the long political career that made Chase both influential and combustible.

The best concise, Court-centered introduction — Chase's Federalist understanding of judicial duty, his opinions in Hylton and Calder v. Bull, his circuit work, and the conduct that culminated in impeachment. Openly revisionist (the "apologist" is Presser himself); most valuable read as a sustained challenge to the conventional portrait. NYU Press.

The strongest sustained modern reassessment of Chase as a jurist, contending that the impeachment has obscured his legal ability — his positions on judicial review, natural law, jury trials, treason, sedition, and federal judicial power. Particularly valuable for Calder v. Bull; deliberately revisionist, to be tested against Perlin and the trial record.

The most detailed modern legal study of the impeachment: the eight articles, the competing constitutional theories, the Senate votes, and the uncertain meaning of judicial independence in the early republic. Perlin argues the acquittal did more than protect judges from partisan removal — it helped establish expectations of political restraint on the bench.

The classic political history of the Jeffersonian assault on the Federalist judiciary — the strongest broad context for the impeachment, placing the trial alongside the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801, Stuart v. Laird, and the struggle over the federal courts' place in the constitutional order. Oxford University Press.

A lucid narrative comparison of the Chase and Andrew Johnson impeachments — by a sitting Chief Justice. The best book-length introduction focused primarily on the impeachment: the political setting, principal advocates, Senate proceedings, and constitutional stakes, without assuming specialist knowledge. A justice writing the history of the only justice ever impeached.

A compact legal history of the proceedings that produced the impeachment — the Fries and Callender trials, Chase's treatment of counsel and juries, the Baltimore grand-jury charge, and the Senate case. Valuable for its clear chronology and close attention to actual courtroom conduct.

The central contemporary record of the Senate trial, taken in shorthand by two reporters: the articles of impeachment, Chase's extensive answer, witness testimony, and the arguments of John Randolph, Luther Martin, and the other advocates. Indispensable, because later accounts often compress or selectively characterize the prosecution and defense. Free at the Internet Archive.

The essential collection for Chase's appointment and first years on the bench — background to Calder, Ware v. Hylton, Hylton, and the Fries proceedings. The series ends in 1800, so it does not cover the Callender trial, the Baltimore charge, or the impeachment itself.

Presser's full-length book — the work behind the two shorter Presser pieces on this shelf — and the leading revisionist interpretation of Chase: not a partisan bully but the most serious Federalist legal thinker on the early bench, working from English models his Jeffersonian enemies refused to recognize. Carolina Academic Press.

The only other full-length life of Chase besides Stormy Patriot — published the same year, from a small Indiana press, and fuller on the judicial career and the impeachment trial. Harder to find, worth the hunt for the Chase-obsessed.

The standard scholarly history of early American impeachment — colonial precedents, state practice, and the federal experiments — culminating in the Chase trial. The context volume that explains why the Senate's 1805 acquittal settled the question for good. Yale University Press.

The leading political-science account of the impeachment — what the Jeffersonians were actually trying to build, and how the acquittal fixed the boundaries of judicial independence that have held since. Pairs with Rehnquist's Grand Inquests as the analytical counterpart to the narrative.

The standard modern biographical encyclopedia of the Court: a signed essay on each of the 110 justices from Jay to Alito, alphabetically arranged, by a named scholar or journalist. Length tracks reputation — two pages for Thomas Johnson, three for Woods, eleven for Holmes — which is itself a rough map of who the literature has bothered with. It is not a substitute for a biography, and for the justices who have never had one it is often the most careful short account in print. Borrow it free at the Internet Archive.

The one-volume reference on the Court: more than a thousand signed entries on cases, doctrines, institutions and the justices, current to 2005. Cases and people share one alphabet, so a citation can be followed without changing volumes, and the biographical entries are short, written by specialists, and better than a longer sketch at carrying the historiography — what the argument about a justice currently is. Borrow it free at the Internet Archive.