delinquent individuals." If anything, these words somewhat
exaggerate the immunity of the States from direct control by the
National Government, for, as James Madison pointed out in the
"Federalist," "in several cases... they [the States] must be viewed and
proceeded against in their collective capacities." Yet Ellsworth stated
correctly the controlling principle of the new government: it was to
operate upon individuals through laws interpreted and enforced by its
own courts.

A Federal Judiciary was provided for in every Plan offered on the floor
of the Federal Convention. There was also a fairly general agreement
among the members on the question of "judicial independence." Indeed,
most of the state constitutions already made the tenure of the principal
judges dependent upon their good behavior, though in some cases judges
were removable, as in England, upon the joint address of the two
Houses of the Legislature. That the Federal judges should be similarly
removable by the President upon the application of the Senate and House
of Representatives was proposed late in the Convention by Dickinson of
Delaware, but the suggestion received the vote of only one State. In the
end it was all but unanimously agreed that the Federal judges should be
removable only upon conviction following impeachment.

But, while the Convention was in accord on this matter, another
question, that of the organization of the new judiciary, evoked the
sharpest disagreement among its members. All believed that there must
be a national Supreme Court to impress upon the national statutes a
construction that should be uniformly binding throughout the country;
but they disagreed upon the question whether there should be inferior
national courts. Rutledge of South Carolina wanted the state courts to
be used as national courts of the first instance and argued that a right
of appeal to the supreme national tribunal would be quite sufficient
"to secure the national rights and uniformity of judgment." But
Madison pointed out that such an arrangement would cause appeals to be
multiplied most oppressively and that, furthermore, it would provide
no remedy for improper verdicts resulting from local prejudices. A
compromise was reached by leaving the question to the discretion
of Congress. The champions of local liberties, however, both at
Philadelphia and in the state conventions continued to the end to urge
that Congress should utilize the state courts as na