by impeachment for misconduct. Only one attempt has ever been
made to impeach a judge of the Supreme Court[1] and that attempt failed.
Still further to insure their freedom from legislative control, the
Constitution provides that the compensation of the judges shall not be
diminished during their continuance in office.[2]

[Footnote 1: Justice Samuel Chase of Maryland in 1804-5.]

[Footnote 2: It is interesting to observe that this Court, safeguarded
against popular clamor and composed of judges appointed for life, has
consistently shown itself more progressive and more responsive to modern
ideas than have most of the state Supreme Courts whose members are
elected directly by the people and for limited terms only.]

From the time of John Jay, the first Chief Justice, down to the present
day the men appointed to membership in the Court have, for the most
part, been lawyers of the highest character and standing, many of whom
had already won distinction in other branches of the public service.
The present Chief Justice (Taft) is an ex-President of the United
States. Among the other members of the Court are a former Secretary of
State of the United States (Justice Day); two former Attorneys General
of the United States (Justices McKenna and McReynolds); a former Chief
Justice of Massachusetts (Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the
distinguished son and namesake of an illustrious father); a former Chief
Justice of Wyoming (Justice Van Devanter); and a former Chancellor of
New Jersey (Justice Pitney).

It is well that the personnel of the Court has been such as to command
respect and deference, for in actual power the judiciary is by far the
weakest of the three cooerdinate departments (legislative, executive,
judicial) among which the functions of government were distributed by
the Constitution. The power of the purse is vested in Congress: it alone
can levy taxes and make appropriations. The Executive is
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy and wields the appointing power.
The Supreme Court controls neither purse nor sword nor appointments to
office. Its power is moral rather than physical. It has no adequate
means of enforcing its decrees without the cooeperation of other
branches of the Government.

That cooeperation has not always been forthcoming. In the year 1802,
Congress, at the instigation of President Jefferson, the inveterate
enemy of Chief Justice Marshall, suspended the sessions of the Court for
more than