Samuel Chase

His political views changed over his lifetime and in the last decades of his career he became well known as a staunch Federalist and was impeached for allegedly letting his partisan leanings affect his court decisions. All the counts involved Chase's work as a trial judge in lower circuit courts. The Jeffersonian Republicans-controlled United States Senate began the impeachment trial of Chase in early 1805 with Vice President Aaron Burr presiding and Randolph leading the prosecution.

Samuel Chase (April 17 1741 – June 19 1811) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and earlier was a signatory to the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of Maryland. His political views changed over his lifetime and in the last decades of his career he became well known as a staunch Federalist and was impeached for allegedly letting his partisan leanings affect his court decisions. Early in life Chase was a "firebrand" states-righter and revolutionary.