In “Federalist 65,” Alexander Hamilton described impeachment “as a method of NATIONAL INQUEST into the conduct of public men.”Footnote ¹ While the impeachment process is laid out in the Constitution, the precise details of how this method operates and the rules that govern these inquests are less clear. Yet the increasingly prevalent use of the impeachment power in recent decades has made understanding it more important. Indeed, historian Douglas Kyvig has gone so far as to declare we are now living in “the age of impeachment.”Footnote ²

It is precisely with the intent “to illuminate the constitutional nature, purpose, and history of the federal impeachment power” (2) that Keith Whittington has written a book focused on impeachments. Yet despite the title, this work is not concerned only with the narrow process of impeachment, nor even with its historical development. Rather, Whittington uses impeachment as a lens for examining the constitutional system as a whole, even describing an impeachment as “moment of constitutional restoration, and sometimes of constitutional change” (1). While Congress is the institution on which Whittington spends the most time—an unsurprising outcome given that the legislature is the institution granted impeachment authority—Whittington does not stay within the bounds of Congress, but goes far afield in providing considerable insights into the executive and judicial branches. Indeed, one of the most interesting chapters in the book is the last substantive chapter where Whittington considers whether there can ever be such a thing as a constitutionally invalid impeachment requiring the Supreme Court’s intervention.

To frame his examination, Whittington structures each of the six substantive chapters as an attempt to answer a question about a particular aspect of impeachment: “What is the Impeachment Process?” “What is a Fair Impeachment Process?” “What is the Impeachment Power For?” “What are High Crimes and Misdemeanors?” “When does Abuse of Power Justify Impeachment?” and finally, “Can the Supreme Court Intervene in an Impeachment?”

There are several virtues to structuring the book in this manner. First, these are questions that any reasonable citizen might ask about the impeachment process. By taking each one in turn, Whittington guides the reader through the different avenues to which these questions might lead, often employing easily accessible hypothetical examples to illustrate how far certain elements of impeachment might be pushed. Yet while those hypotheticals—even the more outlandish ones—are illuminating, they occasionally go to such extremes as to lessen the impact of the overall point Whittington is making.

For example, in the aforementioned exploration of whether an impeachment might be constitutionally invalid, Whittington invents the example of a president being “impeached and convicted for a fashion crime” such as “wearing white after Labor Day” (196). Whittington acknowledges how ridiculous this example is but points out that such a case may tempt judges to get involved and nullify the impeachment conviction. At the same time, he also notes that a Congress who would undertake such an act would likely not listen to the Court or observe regular constitutional forms. That main point of this discussion is a critical observation concerning the difficulties the different branches are confronted with in determining what is impeachable and whether the Court has a role in what appears otherwise to be a political proceeding, yet the absurd hypothetical is almost so memorable as to be distracting from the main point. I hasten to add, however, that such extreme hypotheticals are few and far between, with the vast majority of examples being eminently useful to illustrating Whittington’s argument.

The second virtue of structuring the book as a series of questions is that each chapter is relatively self-contained. While the book works as a singular cohesive whole—and should be read in its entirety for a nuanced understanding of the American constitutional order and impeachment’s role in it—the chapters can function independently of each other. Thus, instructors could easily assign individual chapters for classroom use. The primary drawback is simply that some of the questions—and therefore a few of the chapters—touch on similar issues and must cover similar ground, resulting in some repetition on particular points. This is particularly evident when Whittington discusses the history of impeachment, which occasionally may seem somewhat disjointed to readers who are not already familiar with American history.

While the book’s structure and Whittington’s clear style make this book easily accessible for experts, students, and the general public alike, the most significant theoretical contribution of the work is to highlight the multitude of ways in which politics permeates the impeachment process and the need for political prudence to preserve a healthy constitutional politics that includes impeachment. Phrases like “trial” and “conviction” can give the impression that impeachment is effectively a criminal proceeding, but Whittington repeatedly asserts that it was never intended that way, reminding his readers that “an impeachment trial is still part of politics” (68) and “the Senate was to be a constitutional court, not a criminal court” (133). As a result, impeachable offenses may not always be crimes, and impeachment courts may not always need to follow the strict standards of the criminal justice system. Impeachment necessarily involves politics, and the members of Congress granted this power must inevitably use their political judgment in determining when it is appropriate to call out “the heaviest artillery in the constitutional arsenal” (79). Other scholars have made similar observations,Footnote ³ and even Hamilton argued that impeachments “are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL.”Footnote ⁴ Yet Whittington’s in-depth analysis goes further and fully articulates how “the impeachment power is inescapably political” and that its proper exercise needs, more than anything else, “political judgment” (215).

On the whole, Whittington has provided a book that is exhaustive in its investigation of the impeachment power, demonstrating how it delves to the very core of the American constitutional system and calls upon the people and their representatives to exercise their deliberative capacities to a degree higher than is required in the normal ebb and flow of politics. Moreover, he does so with a clear and engaging style that makes it enjoyable to read. This is an important work that should be read widely by political scientists, lawyers, students, and laypeople for understanding not only our constitutional order generally, but also the turbulent constitutional politics of the United States in the twenty-first century.