impeachment

Impeachment criteria:

James Madison, from the Virginia ratification convention: "If the president be connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter him, he may be impeached."

The South Carolina ratification convention impeachment criteria: those are impeachable "who behave amiss or betray their public trust."

James Madison again at the Constitutional Convention: "A president is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution."

If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that eighteenth century Constitution should be abandoned to a twentieth-century paper shredder. Has the president committed offenses and planned and directed and acquiesced in a course of conduct which the Constitution will not tolerate? That is the question. We know that. We know the question. We should now forthwith proceed to answer the question. It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.

All these come from Barbara Jordans's Opening Statement to the House Judiciary Committee Proceedings on Impeachment of Richard Nixon.
(All possible props to Tree Story, who just doesnt post enough.)