Barbara Jordan - 1974, House Judiciary Committee

[Solly Mack]

Barbara Charline Jordan - Statement on the Articles of Impeachment (You can also listen to her speech)

"Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States: "We, the people." It's a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that "We, the people." I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in "We, the people."

Today I am an inquisitor. An hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.

...

It is wrong, I suggest, it is a misreading of the Constitution for any member here to assert that for a member to vote for an article of impeachment means that that member must be convinced that the President should be removed from office. The Constitution doesn't say that. The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body of the legislature against and upon the encroachments of the executive. The division between the two branches of the legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judgers -- and the judges the same person.

We know the nature of impeachment. We've been talking about it awhile now. It is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to "bridle" the executive if he engages in excesses. "It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men."² The framers confided in the Congress the power if need be, to remove the President in order to strike a delicate balance between a President swollen with power and grown tyrannical, and preservation of the independence of the executive."

[w8liftinglady]

1. Barbara Jordan has always been one of my heroes.She had class and eloquence that was unrivaled

[Solly Mack]

8. I always liked her

[jpgray]

2. Spoken after a long period of investigation, starting with the police

And then continuing with Congress.

[Swamp Rat]

3. k&r

[partylessinOhio]

4. Barbara Jordan was one strong woman. Can we imagine what she

would say if she were alive today?

:cry:

[CitizenLeft]

5. Barbara Jordan...

...was magnificent. Thank you for posting that.

[Solly Mack]

9. You're welcome, CitizenLeft!

[JohnnyLib2]

6. Recommended. Has her brand of courage died completely out?

I see no evidence otherwise. Sigh.

[Solly Mack]

10. I don't think it has....I do think it's being marginalized these days

that kind of courage, I mean...even scorned and ridiculed

[OneBlueSky]

7. way back when Congress had some real public servents in their midst . . .

I don't think anyone in Congress could make a statement like that today because none of them have a true understanding of just what their job is . . . with very few exceptions, Congress today is all about raising money for the next election . . . if sponsoring a bill will help that along, that's fine . . . but doing something as patriotic as impeachment isn't even a consideration for most . . . not even on their radar . . .

[TahitiNut]

11. There's a REASON I've been using her for my avatar.

We were blessed as a nation to have her - we didn't deserve her. We could use her now, but we deserve her even less today.

[Solly Mack]

12. I don't enjoy thinking about what we, as a nation, deserve

:(

which isn't to say I don't....just that I don't enjoy it