Under the rules adopted for the trial each Senator was allowed to file a written opinion. That of Trumbull was the first one in the list. Among other things he said: To do impartial justice in all things appertaining to the present trial, according to the Constitution and laws, is the duty imposed on each Senator by the position he holds and the oath he has taken, and he who falters in the discharge of that duty, either from personal or party considerations, is unworthy his position, and merits the scorn and contempt of all just men. The question to be decided is not whether Andrew Johnson is a proper person to fill the presidential office, nor whether it is fit that he should remain in it, nor, indeed, whether he has violated the Constitution and laws in other respects than those alleged against him. As well might any other fifty-four persons take upon themselves by violence to rid the country of Andrew Johnson, because they believed him a bad man, as to call upon the fifty-four Senators, in violation of their sworn duty, to convict and depose him for any other causes than those alleged in the articles of impeachment. As well might any citizen take the law into his own hands and become its executioner as to ask the Senate to convict, outside of the case made. To sanction such a principle would be destructive of all law and all liberty worth the name, since liberty unregulated by law is but another name for anarchy. He then took up the articles of impeachment _seriatim_ and showed that they all hinged upon the removal of Stanton and the _ad interim_ appointment of Thomas. But even if a different construction could be put upon the law [he continued], I could never consent to convict the Chief Magistrate of a high misdemeanor and remove him from office for a misconstruction of what must be admitted to be a doubtful statute, and particularly when the misconstruction was the same put upon it by the authors of the law at the time of its passage. As to the charge that he (Trumbull) had already voted that the President had no authority to remove Stanton, he said: