Randolph’s closing speech was overcharged with vituperation and with misstatements of fact and law, but was chiefly remarkable on account of the strange and almost irrational behavior of the speaker. Randolph’s tall, thin figure, his penetrating eyes and shrill voice, were familiar to the society of Washington, and his violence of manner in the House only a short time before, in denouncing Granger and the Yazoo men, had prepared his audience for some eccentric outburst; but no one expected to see him, “with much distortion of face and contortion of body, tears, groans, and sobs,” break down in the middle of his self-appointed task, and congratulate the Senate that this was “the last day of my sufferings and of yours.”[143] The next day the Senate debated the form of its final judgment.[144] Bayard moved that the question should be put: “Is Samuel Chase guilty or not guilty of a high crime or misdemeanor as charged in the article just read?” The point was vital; for if this form should be adopted, the Senate returned to the ground it had deserted in the case of Judge Pickering, and every senator would be obliged to assert that Chase’s acts were crimes. At this crisis Giles abandoned the extreme impeachers. He made a speech repeating his old argument, and insisting that the House might impeach and the Senate convict not only for other than indictable offences, but for other than high crimes and misdemeanors; yet since in the present case the charges were avowedly for high crimes and misdemeanors, he was willing to take the question as Bayard proposed it, protesting meanwhile against its establishment as a precedent. Bayard’s Resolution was adopted March 1, a few moments before the hour of half-past twelve, which had been appointed for pronouncing judgment. The Senate chamber was crowded with spectators when Vice-President Burr took the chair and directed the secretary to read the first article of impeachment. Every member of the Senate answered to his name. Tracy of Connecticut, prostrated by recent illness, was brought on a couch and supported to his seat, where his pale face added to the serious effect of the scene. The first article, which concerned the trial of Fries, was that on which Randolph had founded the impeachment, and on which the managers had thrown perhaps the greatest weight. As the roll was called, Senator Bradley of Vermont, first of the Republican members, startled the audience by saying “Not Guilty.” Gaillard of South Carolina, and, to the astonishment of every one, Giles, the most ardent of impeachers, repeated the same verdict. These three defections decided the result; but they were only the beginning. Jackson of Georgia, another hot impeacher, came next; then Dr. Mitchill, Samuel Smith of Maryland, and in quick succession all the three Smiths of New York, Ohio, and Vermont. A majority of the Senate declared against the article, and the overthrow of the impeachers was beyond expectation complete.