hope to see
realized in practice, the complete separation of the judicial from the
legislative power, in any system which leaves the former dependent
for pecuniary resources on the occasional grants of the latter. The
enlightened friends to good government in every State, have seen cause
to lament the want of precise and explicit precautions in the State
constitutions on this head. Some of these indeed have declared that
permanent(1) salaries should be established for the judges; but the
experiment has in some instances shown that such expressions are not
sufficiently definite to preclude legislative evasions. Something still
more positive and unequivocal has been evinced to be requisite. The plan
of the convention accordingly has provided that the judges of the United
States "shall at stated times receive for their services a compensation
which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office."

This, all circumstances considered, is the most eligible provision
that could have been devised. It will readily be understood that the
fluctuations in the value of money and in the state of society rendered
a fixed rate of compensation in the Constitution inadmissible. What
might be extravagant to-day, might in half a century become penurious
and inadequate. It was therefore necessary to leave it to the discretion
of the legislature to vary its provisions in conformity to the
variations in circumstances, yet under such restrictions as to put it
out of the power of that body to change the condition of the individual
for the worse. A man may then be sure of the ground upon which he
stands, and can never be deterred from his duty by the apprehension of
being placed in a less eligible situation. The clause which has been
quoted combines both advantages. The salaries of judicial officers may
from time to time be altered, as occasion shall require, yet so as
never to lessen the allowance with which any particular judge comes into
office, in respect to him. It will be observed that a difference has
been made by the convention between the compensation of the President
and of the judges, That of the former can neither be increased nor
diminished; that of the latter can only not be diminished. This probably
arose from the difference in the duration of the respective offices.
As the President is to be elected for no more than four years, it can
rarely happen that an adequate salary, fixed at the commencement of that
period, wi