SEVEN YEARS AGO, I wrote down some observations elsewhere on the astrological connections surrounding the impeachment of a U.S. President, Bill Clinton. My thoughts on this are recorded in a series of articles elsewhere on this site entitled The Impeachment Chronicles. That series was based in part on contemporaneous observation, and in part on looking at parallel events in U.S. history, both nationally and at the state level. Examples of the former include the impeachment of Andrew Johnson and the resignation of Richard Nixon, while at the state level I considered at least one gubernatorial impeachment.
Astrologically, though I focused at first on a Saturn-Neptune square that occurred early 1998, this aspect began to widen even as the idea of bringing Clinton down grew legs and took off running. One would expect that an event like this would first of all involve a long-term aspect pattern such as Saturn-Neptune, something which would serve to put people in the mood for impeachment, so to speak. However, since impeachment is both a political and a legal process, it takes time to build, time to formalize, and time to carry out. As things come to a head in a process like this, a confluence of short-term aspects would serve to build up the pressure begun by the long-term contacts, eventually bringing closure on impeachment. At that point, a trial is held which will result either in removal from office or acquittal.
Over the course of watching Clinton's impeachment and comparing it with similar incidents, I eventually noticed that a particular set of aspects seemed fairly consistent from one set of events to another. Along with impeachments, these historical episodes included abdications and assassinations. Each of these involves a formal or informal process of limiting a person's authority or removing him or her from power.
Note that a connection was made between impeachment and assassination by Benjamin Franklin, quoted here by James Madison in his notes made at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787:
Dr. Franklin was for retaining the clause [on impeachment], as favorable to the executive. History furnishes one example only of a first magistrate being formally brought to public justice. Every body cried out against this as unconstitutional. What was the practice before this, in cases where the chief magistrate rendered himself obnoxious? Why, recourse was had to assassination, in which he was not only deprived of his life, but of the opportunity of vindicating his character. It would be the best way, therefore, to provide in the Constitution for the regular punishment of the executive, where his misconduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal, where he should be unjustly accused.
This is an important link between two apparently different types of events. Impeachment emerges slowly from an often venomous political atmosphere. Even when it fails, its primary mission - to limit the power of a sitting president or governor - often succeeds. Notice that Franklin implies a fairly narrow definition of assassination, because he is speaking of two different modes of carrying on a power struggle. Even though the clause in the constitution that came out of the Philadelphia discussion calls for impeachment of “the President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States” for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” Franklin's point emphasizes its human and political aspects. Others in the discussion recorded by Madison put more emphasis on how to deal with criminality in an executive or judicial officer, and on how to enforce the principle that no man should be above the law. Both of these perspectives on the impeachment clause - from the legal and from the political point of view - are important.
Franklin's notion that a person could become the target of impeachment simply because he had “rendered himself obnoxious” was right on the mark if we consider the history of impeachment in the U.S. Obnoxiousness seems to have been involved at least as often as those oft-mentioned high crimes and misdemeanors. And two major ingredients in that obnoxiousness are pure politics and pure personality. Even where crime is clearly the central issue, as with Richard Nixon's obstruction of justice, it helps if the “suspect” is not well-liked, is arrogant, or is uncooperative - or all three.
So with that as a background, in the next post I will begin with an animated graphic of the pattern that seems to stir all this up. I call it the Mandate of Heaven Sequence.