Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/212

202 liberty and happiness. Filmer's divine origin of kings, Mr. Adams's natural origin of noble orders, and the doctrine of judicial independency (on God and conscience excepted) are equally pious, equally wise, equally in concord with the qualities of buman nature, and equally calculated to secure human liberty. Each goes as far as possible towards making Gods of men.

A period existed in the progress of the English government, during which an effort was made to diminish the power of the king. Judicial power was in the list of feudal usurpations. The king, having the right of judging, exercised it by a deputy, dependent on his Mill. But the other orders strint the king of this branch of feudal power, and succeeded in transferring the dependence of the judges from one order to three.

The term " independence," as applied to judges in England, cannot refer to the sovereign power, because they are dependent on the will of the parliament. The doctrine it inculcates, therefore, docs not extend beyond the idea of their independence of any power inferior to the sovereignty. The sovereignty in the scheme of balanced orders, as in England, does not rest in one order, but in three; the judges were considered as dependent, whilst they were exclusively subjected to tise will of one order, the king; and as independent, when sulijected to the will of the parliament, the sovereignty itself; because an exclusive subjection to the will of the sovereign, is the highest state of independence, of which a subject or agent is capable. In an equivalent sense the term is used by our policy. The legislature and executive shall be independent, not of the sovereignty, but of any other agent of the sovereign's.

To effect the English judicial independence, the judges. though named by the king, are removable at the pleasure of the parliament; and our imitation of this policy, destroys the subordination of judicial power to the sovereignty, and bestows a considerable influence over it on an agent or subject of the sovereignty. The president creates judges, and