Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/580

564 It has been a thing desired by the people of England for many years, that the judges should be independent. This independency never was obtained till the second or third year of the reign of George III. It was omitted at the revolution by inattention. Their compensation is now fixed, and they hold their offices during good behavior. But I say that our federal judges are placed in a situation as liable to corruption as they could possibly be. How are judges to be operated upon? By the hopes of reward, and not the fear of a diminution of compensation. Common decency would prevent lessening the salary of a judge. Throughout the whole page of history, you will find the corruption of judges to have always arisen from that principle—the hope of reward. This is left open here. The flimsy argument brought by my friend, not as his own, but as supported by others, will not hold. It would be hoped that the judges should get too much rather than too little, and that they should be perfectly independent. What if you give six hundred or a thousand pounds annually to a judge? It is but a trifling object, when, by that little money, you purchase the most invaluable blessing that any country can enjoy.

There is to be one Supreme Court—for chancery, admiralty, common pleas, and exchequer, (which great cases are left in England to four great courts,) to which are added criminal jurisdiction, and all cases depending on the law of nations—a most extensive jurisdiction. This court has more power than any court under heaven. One set of judges ought not to have this power—and judges, particularly, who have temptation always before their eyes. The court thus organized are to execute laws made by thirteen nations, dissimilar in their customs, manners, laws, and interests. If we advert to the customs of these different sovereignties, we shall find them repugnant and dissimilar. Yet they are all forced to unite and concur in making these laws. They are to form them on one principle, and on one idea, whether the civil law, common law, or law of nations. The gentleman was driven, the other day, to the expedient of acknowledging the necessity of having thirteen different tax laws. This destroys the principle, that he who lays a tax should feel it and bear his proportion of it. This has not been answered: it will involve consequences so absurd, that, I presume, they will not attempt to make thirteen