Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/471

 CH. XXXVIII.] swell to a very considerable bulk, and must demand long and laborious study, to acquire a competent knowledge of them. Hence it is, that there can be but few men in the society, who will have sufficient skill in the laws to qualify them for the stations of judges. And making the proper deductions for the ordinary depravity of human nature, the number must be still smaller of those, who unite the requisite integrity with the requisite knowledge. These considerations apprise us, that the government can have no great option between fit characters; and that a temporary duration in office, which would naturally discourage such characters from quitting a lucrative line of practice to accept a seat on the bench, would have a tendency to throw the administration of justice into hands, less able, and less well qualified to conduct it with utility and dignity. In the present circumstances of this country, and in those, in which it is likely to be for a long time to come, the disadvantages on this score would be greater, than they may at first sight appear; but it must be confessed, that they are far inferior to those, which present themselves under the other aspects of the subject.

§ 1600. Upon the whole, there can be no room to doubt, that the convention acted wisely in copying from the models of those constitutions, which have established good behaviour, as the tenure of judicial offices in point of duration; and that, so far from being blamable on this account, their plan would have been inexcusably defective, if it had wanted this important feature of good government. The experience of Great Britain affords an illustrious comment on the excellence of the institution.

§ 1601. These remarks will derive additional