SWEEPING RESOLUTION. 183 



resentatives impeached the judges, and having a majority of 

 two thirds in the senate they proceeded against them in due 

 form and removed them from office. Judges Sprigg, Tod and 

 Pease were successively removed in the years preceding 

 1809-10 for this cause, and in this way. All things seemed 

 to bend before the arbitrary will of the omnipotent general 

 assembly; but in the autumn of 1809 the people did not elect 

 " sweepers" enough to the senate to enable the house to car- 

 ry an impeachment through the senate. There were fourteen 

 " sweepers" and ten conservatives. Maturing their plan of 

 operations and having determined at all events, " constitution 

 or no constitution," as one of them said, on the floor of the 

 house, to remove not only all who opposed their will, but all 

 other civil officers in the state, they moved forward to the 

 work. They set up a new doctrine, " that in a short time it 

 would be seven years, since the constitution went into opera- 

 tion and certainly all civil officers ought to go out of office 

 every seven years, and so have the field entirely cleared oiF 

 for new aspirants to office." In accordance with these " repub- 

 lican ideas," (if they could be believed,) on the 27th day of 

 December, 1809, Samuel Dunlap, a representative from Jef- 

 ferson county, presented a resolution to the house in these 

 words, to wit : " Resolved, that all civil officers, of govern- 

 ment, within this state whether elected to office by the legis- 

 lature, or by the people, to fill vacancies, shall hold their offi- 

 ces no longer than their predecessors would have done. 

 Resolved, also, that a committee of three members be appoin- 

 ted to prepare a bill defining the manner of commissioning 

 such officers." These resolutions were made the order of the 

 day, for the next Monday. But on that day, January 1st 1810, 

 they were farther postponed to the next Thursday. On that 

 day they were discussed., and postponed to January the 7th. On 

 that day these resolutions were enlarged greatly and passed. 

 On their passage they read as follows, viz: "Whereas it is pro- 

 vided by the eighth section of the third article of the con- 

 stitution of this state, that the judges of the supreme court, 

 the presidents and associate judges of the court of common 



