The impeachers had no one whom they could pit against this "unprincipled and impudent Federalist bulldog," as Jefferson called him; and in other ways, too, from the first their lot was not easy. For one thing, they could not agree among themselves as to the proper scope of impeachment under the Constitution. Randolph, the leader of the House managers, and Campbell adhered in essence to Giles's theory. But Rodney and Nicholson, both much abler lawyers, openly disavowed such latitudinarian doctrine. In a general way, their view of the matter may be stated thus: Because judges of the United States are guaranteed continuance in office only during "good behavior," and because impeachment is the only method of removal recognized by the Constitution, the "high crimes and misdemeanors" for which impeachment is the constitutional resource must include all cases of willful misconduct in office, whether indictable or not. This seems sound theory and appears today to be established theory. But sound or not, the managers of the Republicans were not a unit in urging it, while their opponents put forward with confidence and unanimity the theory that "high crimes and misdemeanors" were always indictable offenses. More calamitous still for the accusers of Chase was the way in which, when the evidence began to come in, the case against him started crumpling at the corners. Lewis, who had been Fries's attorney and whose testimony they had chiefly relied upon to prove the judge's unfairness on that occasion, had not only acknowledged that his memory was "not very tenacious" after so great a lapse of time but had further admitted that he had really dropped the case because he thought it "more likely that the President would pardon him [Fries] after having been convicted without having counsel than if he had." Similarly Hay, whose repeated efforts to bring the question of the constitutionality of the Sedition Act before the jury had caused the rupture between court and counsel in Callender's case, owned that he had entertained "but little hopes of doing Callender any good" but had "wished to address the public on the constitutionality of the law." Sensations multiplied on every side. A man named Heath testified that Chase had told the marshal to strike all Democrats from the panel which was to try Callender; whereupon a second witness called to confirm this testimony stated facts which showed the whole story to be a deliberate fabrication. The story that Chase had attacked the Administration at Baltimore was also substantially disproved by the managers' own witnesses. But the climax of absurdity was reached in the fifth and sixth articles of impeachment, which were based on the assumption that an act of Congress had required the procedure in Callender's case to be in accordance with the law of Virginia. In reply to this argument Chase's attorneys quickly pointed out that the statute relied upon applied only to actions between citizens of different States!