ffice was generally for one year. The precariousness of the judicial
office in the royal provinces had more than once led to attempts on the
part of the colonists to secure greater permanency, because a permanent
judiciary would afford them protection against the royal authorities.
All attempts of this kind, however, had been defeated by the negative
voice of the government of England. Possibly the permanence of judicial
tenure which is found in the Constitution of the United States may be
regarded in some sort as the result of this pre-revolutionary
contest."[57]

As a matter of fact, however, there is nothing extraordinary or
difficult to explain in this permanency of judicial tenure which the
Constitution established. It was not in the charter colonies where
annual legislative appointment of judges was the rule, but in the royal
provinces that efforts were made by the people to secure greater
permanency of judicial tenure. They wished to give the judges more
independence in the latter, because it would be the means of placing a
check upon irresponsible authority, but were satisfied with a short term
of office for judges in the colonies where they were elected and
controlled by the legislature. Any explanation of the permanent tenure
of our Federal judges "as the result of this pre-revolutionary contest"
is insufficient. It was clearly a device consciously adopted by the
framers of the Constitution, not for the purpose of limiting
irresponsible authority, but for the purpose of setting up an authority
that would be in large measure politically irresponsible.

Conservative writers while giving unstinted praise to this feature of
the Constitution have not explained its real significance. They have
assumed, and expect us to take it for granted, that the Federal
judiciary was designed as a means of making the will of the people
supreme; that its independence and exalted prerogatives were necessary
to enable it to protect the people against usurpation and oppression at
the hands of the legislative branch of the government.

Hamilton tells us, "The standard of good behavior for the continuance in
office of the judicial magistracy, is certainly one of the most valuable
of the modern improvements in the practice of government. In a monarchy,
it is an excellent barrier to the despotism of the prince; in a
republic, it is a no less excellent barrier to the encroachments and
oppressions of the representative body....

"The c