Justice Chase was certainly “cranky and outspoken,” said Joel R. Paul, a law professor who wrote a book on the court during that era. But it was clear that Justice Chase’s behavior did not qualify as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and the Senate voted against ousting him, finding no reason for his removal from office on a constitutional basis.

Justice Chase remains the only justice to stand trial on impeachment charges brought by Congress.

Roger B. Taney has the president on his side

President Andrew Jackson first nominated Judge Taney to the Supreme Court in 1835, a choice that was controversial because of the judge’s opposition to the national bank, according to Professor Paul’s book “Without Precedent.” Judge Taney’s opponents attacked him for his “servility” to President Jackson on the issue, and with fierce resistance from the majority Whig party, the Senate rejected him.

Image Justice Roger B. Taney was confirmed to the Supreme Court after the makeup of the Senate shifted in President Andrew Jackson’s favor. Credit... Library of Congress

But the president had another chance to confirm his ally when the Democrats took control of the Senate that year. After Chief Justice Marshall died, President Jackson’s nomination of Judge Taney sailed through, according to a 2006 journal article in The Supreme Court Review. Judge Taney was confirmed not just as a justice but as the court’s chief justice.

In 1857, Chief Justice Taney’s confirmation proved enormously consequential when he wrote the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford. The decision held that Dred Scott, an enslaved man who had lived for a time in a free state and territory, had no standing to sue for freedom on the grounds that blacks could not be citizens of the United States. The decision also declared that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, fanning the flames that led to the Civil War.

President Nixon’s back-to-back rejections

In 1970, President Richard Nixon nominated Judge G. Harrold Carswell, a Southern conservative, to the Supreme Court. His previous nominee, Judge Clement F. Haynsworth Jr., had recently been rejected by the Senate after concerns arose about his support for segregation and the ethics of his personal finances.