Fifty years ago today, Richard Nixon resigned as president of the United States.
He gave up his office rather than defend himself in an impeachment process in the U.S. Senate that, if successful, would remove him from that office.
What might we learn of contemporary international relevance from this American’s voluntary surrender of his authority?
First, we might consider how rare is the resignation from office of presidents and prime ministers. Pope Benedict stepped down as Pope. From time to time, royals have abdicated in favor of their heir apparent, but most, like Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, retain the crown until death. Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, just resigned as protestors stormed her official residence. Just last month, President Joe Biden resigned as the presidential candidate of the Democrat Party.
Few leaders come to feel that it is prudent or necessary for them to resign from high office. They tend to prolong their tenure as long as they can get away with it.
The issue for political systems is when does a president or a prime minister or a monarch become unfit for the office and so deserves removal from that position? What behaviors make an incumbent unfit to serve? Who should decide whether removal is justified? Do rulers like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have to worry about being removed from their offices?
In the case of Richard Nixon, the rules and procedures for removal were written in the Constitution of the United States: the behavior deserving removal is the commission of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The decision to remove a president is made by the U.S. Senate after an impeachment petition has been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The removal of high royal officials for “high crimes and misdemeanors” was a practice of the English parliament for several centuries and was borrowed by the Americans who drafted the federal constitution of 1787. The proposal to set the standard for removable conduct as “high crimes and misdemeanors” was made by George Mason to include the precedent of the impeachment of Warren Hastings by the British Parliament. Hastings was charged with corruption and other abuses of power when acting as the governor general of Bengal for the British East India Company.
Edmund Burke brought the impeachment before the House of Commons. The Commons impeached Hastings. Then Burke made the case before the House of Lords in Parliament assembled that Hastings justly deserved impeachment:
Do we [lack] a tribunal? My lords, no example of antiquity, nothing in the modern world, nothing in the range of human imagination, can supply us with a tribunal like this. We commit safely the interests of India and humanity into your hands. Therefore, it is with confidence that, ordered by the Commons, I impeach Warren Hastings, Esquire, of high crimes and misdemeanors.
I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has betrayed.
I impeach him in the name of all the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonored.
I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights and liberties he has subverted; whose properties he has destroyed; whose country he has laid waste and desolate.
I impeach him in the name and by virtue of those eternal laws of justice which he has violated.
I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured and oppressed, in both sexes, in every age, rank, situation and condition of life.
My lords, at this awful close, in the name of the Commons and surrounded by them, I attest the retiring, I attest the advancing generations, between which, as a link in the great chain of eternal order, we stand. We call this nation, we call the world to witness, that the Commons have shrunk from no labor; that we have been guilty of no prevarication; that we have made no compromise with crime; that we have not feared any odium whatsoever, in the long warfare which we have carried on with the crimes, with the vices, with the exorbitant wealth, with the enormous and overpowering influence of Eastern corruption.
My lords, it has pleased Providence to place us in such a state that we appear every moment to be upon the verge of some great mutations. There is one thing and one thing only, which defies all mutation: that which existed before the world and will survive the fabric of the world itself—I mean justice; that justice which, emanating from the Divinity, has a place in the breast of every one of us, given us for our guide with regard to ourselves and with regard to others and which will stand, after this globe is burned to ashes, our advocate or our accuser, before the great Judge, when He comes to call upon us for the tenor of a well-spent life. …
My lords, if you must fall, may you so fall! But, if you stand—and stand I trust you will—together with the fortune of this ancient monarchy, together with the ancient laws and liberties of this great and illustrious kingdom, may you stand as unimpeached in honor as in power; may you stand, not as a substitute for virtue, but as an ornament of virtue, as a security for virtue; may you stand long and long stand the terror of tyrants; may you stand the refuge of afflicted nations; may you stand a sacred temple, for the perpetual residence of an inviolable justice!
What Burke argued was that public office is a trust, not a personal property to be used selfishly, capriciously or stupidly by the incumbent. The holder of the office is a trustee of the public good and so is held to perform fiduciary duties of due care and selfless loyalty to those who stand to benefit from the execution of powers so held in trust.
In the case of Hastings, Burke argued that the people of India, under British colonial rule, could not be abused by a British official, that they were beneficiaries of a trust held by that official.
The trial of Warren Hastings in the House of Lords started on February 13, 1788 and continued over a period of seven years, with 148 days of hearings. The House of Lords acquitted him of all charges on April, 24 1795.
The first article of impeachment against Richard Nixon spoke similarly of abuse of power:
In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed and impeded the administration of justice, in that:
On June 17, 1972 and prior thereto, agents of the Committee for the Re-election of the President committed unlawful entry of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose of securing political intelligence. Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry, to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities. …
In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial and removal from office.
(As a student at the Harvard law School, I was privileged to have been able to research the English parliamentary precedents of impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors and have my conclusion that such impeachments were fiduciary proceedings for breach of public trust included as above in the articles of impeachment of Richard Nixon. My law review article making that case is: “Public Office as a Public Trust: A suggestion that a fiduciary standard is implied in Impeachment for High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” Georgetown Law Journal, 1975.)
In his impeachment of Warren Hastings, Burke advanced principles of justice of global and therefore of cross-cultural application. Today, in our world seeking to put behind it the abuses and injustices of yesteryear for the benefit of all humanity, public office everywhere should be held to standards of responsible stewardship of the public good.
Mencius argued that every monarch should institute governing by benevolence. All persons living under Heaven would approve of such government. (Bk. 1, Pt.1, Ch. VII, 18) He advised King Hui of Liang that he would find advantage in ruling if he delivered humanness and benevolence. In other words, if he ruled as a caring steward of the people’s well-being. A benevolent person has a duty to care for others. Mencius referred to rulers as “shepherds of men.” (BK. 1, Pt. 1, Ch VI, 6)
Mencius said to King Xuan of Qi, “Suppose that one of your Majesty’s ministers were to entrust his wife and children to the care of his friend, while he himself went into Chu to travel and that, on his return, he should find that the friend had let his wife and children suffer from cold and hunger – how ought he to deal with him?”
The king said, “He should cast him off.”
Mencius proceeded, “Suppose that the chief criminal judge could not regulate the officers under him – how would you deal with him?”
The king said, “Dismiss him.”
Mencius again said, “If within the four borders of your kingdom there is not good government, what is to be done?”
The king looked to the right and left and spoke of other matters. (Bk.1, Pt.2, Ch. VI, 1)
The Qur’an provides guidance that all men and women were and are created by God to serve as stewards (khalifa) in his creations. Their skills and powers, intelligence and capabilities, are given to all of them in trust (as an amanah) to be used wisely and selflessly. We can properly ask if Islamic rulers today and throughout history have lived up to this exacting standard. In adopting its global ethical principles for moral government, the Caux Round Table has followed the ideal articulated by Edmund Burke and others with similar idealism. The Caux Round Table Principles for Government hold that:
Public power is held in trust for the community.
Power brings responsibility. Power is a necessary moral circumstance in that it binds the actions of one to the welfare of others.
Therefore, the power given by public office is held in trust for the benefit of the community and its citizens. Officials are custodians only of the powers they hold. They have no personal entitlement to office or the prerogatives thereof.
Holders of public office are accountable for their conduct while in office. They are subject to removal for malfeasance, misfeasance or abuse of office. The burden of proof that no malfeasance, misfeasance or abuse of office has occurred lies with the officeholder.
The state is the servant and agent of higher ends. It is subordinate to society. Public power is to be exercised within a framework of moral responsibility for the welfare of others. Governments that abuse their trust shall lose their authority and may be removed from office.