“Instead of investigating charges of impeachment against the President of the United States on specific allegations, charges extending to every crime and every folly which a wicked, bad man could be guilty of,” Stevens later said, “the investigation entered upon with a malignity and feeling which could do no credit to so high a tribunal.” That damaged the process and the outcome. “These innumerable eggs were thrown into the nest of his investigation, until it was more than full,” Stevens lamented. “They thought to break the elephant’s back, broad as it was, by piling upon it straws.”
The second blunder that ruined the impeachment
