The first impeachment

by Buckner F. Melton

Six years before Thomas Jefferson hired Meriwether Lewis to open the West, the Southwest Territory was seen by many as part of the natural westward expansion of the United States. William Blount (1749-1800), a land speculator and national politician, served as governor of the Southwest Territory 1790-96. In 1796 he became one of Tennessee's first two U.S. senators. In 1796 and 1797 he became involved in a frontier plot to invade Spanish-held Louisiana and Florida, with British backing, in order to facilitate economic development in the western United States and to increase his land sales there. When the federal government discovered Blount's involvement in the conspiracy in mid-1797, the House of Representatives impeached him, the first time it even exercised this power, and the Senate simultaneously expelled him. Impeachment proceedings continued until early 1799, when the Senate dismissed the impeachment, finding that senators are not subject to the process. During this time many mem