America’s First Impeachment
Nov 7 · 5 min read
The very first case of impeachment in America was brought in 1774, instigated by the colonial House of Representatives against Peter Oliver, Chief Justice of Massachusetts. John Adams prepared the Articles of Impeachment, which listed corruption, greed, and disloyalty, all indicating “high crimes and misdemeanors,” as the bases for impeachment.[1]
Adams had first become concerned over the decreasing “Independence of the Judges”[2] (as he called it), when in 1773 word came from King and Parliament that judges in the American colonies would no longer receive their salaries from their…


