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erred, but it has always been the upright judge who has
stood between the citizen and oppression.
How is independence to be obtained? By making the
tenure secure and giving your judges good salaries. Man
is the creature of selfishness, and he would ask those
members who advocated a term of years and re-eligibility,
if they did not offer a temptation which it would be too
hard to resist? Would not the judge, as his term was
approaching to an end, look to the strongest political
party for re-election? He cared not how upright the
judge was, how high his moral worth, he could not be
re-elected if he did not belong to the strongest party. He
sees the universality of this rule from the election of
president down to that of constable. This judge, who has
sacrificed a lucrative practice, finds his term drawing to
a close, and starvation for himself and family staring him
in the face, and it is but human nature that he should
lean to the side of that party which can cast the most
votes.
Suppose he is called on to decide in a case where a
prominent member of this political party is concerned.
Then it is that the scales of justice, which should be
grasped firmly, tremble in the balance. On the other
hand, look at the judge who holds his office during good
behavior. He has no inducement of party favor or no fear
of party displeasure. He has everything to make him up-
right, impartial and independent. When the question of
life tenure came up in that grand convention which gave
us the Constitution of the United States, it received a
unanimous vote, not one voice being raised against it.
Our own constitution of 1776 contained this same grand
principle, and so it remained until 1851, when the term of
years principle was inserted. The spirit of reform which
then ran riot all over the State was the cause of this, the
wild cry of rotation in office which caused the greatest
blow to be struck at constitutional liberty, by overthrow-
ing an independent judiciary. What had been the work-
ings of this new system, had not their experience of it
been sufficient ?
Mr. Wickes then, in advocacy of the life tenure, referred
to the action of the Supreme Court in setting aside the
sentence of the military commission in the case of Milli-
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