<P> The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments . When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation . When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present . </P> <P> Clause Six grants to the Senate the sole power to try impeachments and spells out the basic procedures for impeachment trials . The Supreme Court has interpreted this clause to mean that the Senate has exclusive and unreviewable authority to determine what constitutes an adequate impeachment trial . Of the nineteen federal officials formally impeached by the House of Representatives, eleven were acquitted and seven were convicted by the Senate . On one occasion (in the case of Senator William Blount) the Senate declined to hold a trial, asserting that it had no jurisdiction over its own members . </P> <P> The constitution's framers vested the Senate with this power for several reasons . First, they believed Senators would be better educated, more virtuous, and more high - minded than Members of the House of Representatives and thus uniquely able to decide responsibly the most difficult of political questions . Second, they believed that the Senate, being a numerous body, would be well suited to handle the procedural demands of an impeachment trial, in which it, unlike judges and the judiciary system, would "never be tied down by such strict rules, either in the delineation of the offense by the prosecutor, or in the construction of it by judges, as in the common cases serve to limit the discretion of courts in favor of personal security ." (Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 65). </P> <P> There are three Constitutionally mandated requirements for impeachment trials . The provision that Senators must sit on oath or affirmation was designed to impress upon them the extreme seriousness of the occasion . The stipulation that the Chief Justice is to preside over presidential impeachment trials underscores the solemnity of the occasion and aims to avoid the possible conflict of interest of a Vice President's presiding over the proceeding for the removal of the one official standing between him (or her) and the presidency . The specification that a two - thirds supermajority vote of those Senators present is necessary in order to convict designed to facilitate serious deliberation and to make removal possible only through a consensus that cuts across factional divisions . </P>

Where does the constitution describe the powers of the states and restrictions on state power