<P> High crimes and misdemeanors is a phrase from Section 4 of Article Two of the United States Constitution: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors ." </P> <P> "High" in the legal and common parlance of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of "high crimes" signifies activity by or against those who have special duties acquired by taking an oath of office that are not shared with common persons . A high crime is one that can only be done by someone in a unique position of authority, which is political in character, who does things to circumvent justice . The phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" when used together was a common phrase at the time the U.S. Constitution was written and did not mean any stringent or difficult criteria for determining guilt . It meant the opposite . The phrase was historically used to cover a very broad range of crimes . The Judiciary Committee's 1974 report "The Historical Origins of Impeachment" stated: "' High Crimes and Misdemeanors' has traditionally been considered a' term of art', like such other constitutional phrases as' levying war' and' due process .' The Supreme Court has held that such phrases must be construed, not according to modern usage, but according to what the framers meant when they adopted them . Chief Justice (John) Marshall wrote of another such phrase: </P> <Dl> <Dd> "It is a technical term . It is used in a very old statute of that country whose language is our language, and whose laws form the substratum of our laws . It is scarcely conceivable that the term was not employed by the framers of our constitution in the sense which had been affixed to it by those from whom we borrowed it ." </Dd> </Dl> <Dd> "It is a technical term . It is used in a very old statute of that country whose language is our language, and whose laws form the substratum of our laws . It is scarcely conceivable that the term was not employed by the framers of our constitution in the sense which had been affixed to it by those from whom we borrowed it ." </Dd>

In the united states government other high crimes and misdemeanors are determined by