Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/495

 CH. XXXVIII.] provisions has never, as yet, been satisfactorily established by the experience of any state. That they have worked mischievously in some cases is matter of public notoriety. The Federalist has remarked, in reference to the limitation in New-York, there are few at present, who do not disapprove of this provision. There is no station, in which it is less proper, than that of a judge. The deliberating and comparing faculties generally preserve their strength much beyond that period in men, who survive it. And when, in addition to this circumstance, we consider how few there are, who outlive the season of intellectual vigour, and how improbable it is, that any considerable portion of the bench, whether more or less numerous, should be in such a situation at the same time, we shall be ready to conclude, that limitations of this sort have little to recommend them. In a