When this subject was first introduced, it appeared to me novel, and that there were no precedents in point under the Federal Government. It is time that this precedent should be established. It is time that every officer should know that this House is ready at any time to inquire into his official conduct, if charged with misbehavior; and instead of declining the inquiry, in this instance, from a false delicacy to the officer, it becomes the House to embrace the resolution and make the inquiry. If evidence shall be collected, and it appears that there are no grounds for impeachment, the officer will be restored to the public confidence, and will be acquitted. If, on the other hand, it appears that he has been guilty of malfeasance in office, a duty will be imposed upon the House, from which they cannot recede, to bring him to trial. Mr. THATCHER.--As gentlemen seem to consider the decision of the court in the trial of Fries as unprecedented, I beg leave to refer them to the cases of the United States _versus_ Vigol, and the same _versus_ Mitchell, 2 Dallas’s Reports, 346 to 357. They will find that the decision of the court, in the case of Fries, was exactly conformable to cases adjudged in 1795. Without troubling the House with the whole of those cases, I beg leave to read the decision of the court in the last case. “The charge of the court, says the reporter, was delivered to the jury in substance as follows. Patterson justice. ‘The first question to be considered is, what was the general object of the insurrection? If its object was to suppress the excise offices, and to prevent the execution of an act of Congress, by force and intimidation, the offence, in legal estimation, is high treason: it is a usurpation of the authority of Government; it is high treason by levying of war.’” The decision, sir, is also conformable to the English authorities. The charge then against Judge Chase and Judge Peters, after divesting it of the coloring which imagination has given it, amounts to this--that, in the trial of Fries for treason, the court prevented the counsel from arguing to the jury against a point of law long settled by that and other courts of the United States. I have attended closely to the statement made by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. SMILIE,) and I believe I am correct. The very point which the counsel of Fries would have argued to the jury, was that which had long before been settled by the courts of the United States. I contend, sir, that this court did no more than they had a right to do--no more than is practised by every well regulated court. They prevented counsel from arguing law in the face of the authorities, and of the opinion of the court. That this is usual, I appeal to gentlemen of the law who are present. This, sir, is the only fact stated to the House upon which the motion is founded.