The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1912-02-17

new school of innovators and experiment
ters. If stability is essential in general
it is fundamentally imperative for
judiciary, and that stability can come
only through the courage and indepeEd-
ence of the Judges. Alexander Hamilton
said:
This independence of the Judges Is
equally requisite to guard the Consti-
tuition and the rights of individuals from
the effects of those ill humors which the
arts of designing men or the influence
of particular conjunctures sometimes
disseminate among the pepole them
selves and which, though they speedily
give place to better information and
more deliberate reflection, have a ten
dency to occasion dangerous innovations
in the government and serious oppres-
sions of the minor party in the COM
munity."
The people of Arizona, who have in
corporated a provision for the recall of
the Judges in their new Constitution,
want the decisions on all questions to
be in accord with their immediate wishes
and before they have the better infor-
nation and the time for deliberate re-
Election. The contention that the peo-
pie rule and that the Judges are scr
wants of the people and therefore to be
dismissed at will, Mr.. Fink dsposes of
most convincingly:
when it is said that the people are
supreme, that they employ the Judges
and stand toward them in the relation
of master to servant, what is meant
is thn mni pritU nf ho in
lies the error. The Judges are not the
servants and agents of the majority.
The Judges are servants of both the ma
.ority and the minority and must of lie
cessity be independent of each.
1T is one of the peculiar functions of
Judge in a State governed by laws
and not by men to protect the minority
or the individual, as the case may be-
Though chosen by the majority or by
some person or persons to whom the
power of selection has been delegated,
they cease, upon induction into office, to
become the mere servants at will OF
those by whom they were selected; nay,
they never were their servants. The
right OF selection in no sense carries
with it such right of domination as was
u'tNihptNi Wy SHullcS L. Upon SELECTION
the Judges become the servants of the
whole people, not of the majority or
class by whom they may have been
chosen. They represent the minority,
the weakest class in society; the hum
blest individual just as much as the
dominant political party, the laboring
or moneyed classes, or the most potent
members OF the community. During
their term of office they are justly an.
swerable to no one.
"A powerful minority may we'll trust
the selection of the Judges to a majtr-
ty, but the domination of this majority
after selection is quite another matter
This is tyranny. and as Montesqueu
says, the end of all things. Such
practice, when taken advantage of by
majorities, as it inevitably must be, can
be maintained only by arms, and this
power does not always lie in MAORI
ties"
The constitution, TIE laws, the repub-
liacn form OF government, the indepen-
dent judiciary are all devices erected
and maintained for the very purpose of
escaping the horrors of a pure demo-
cracy, from the injustices, the tyrannies,
the folles, whims, caprices and ignor-
ance incident to and inseparable from a
direct Judgment on a multitude of diff
cul Questions by people who have given
no attention to them or mayhap are
swept hither and thither by factional or
partisan passion. The Judge was made
Independent because it is expected of
him, for the honor of his country, ana
for the protection of the individual, that
he shall be in position to render an
unpopular decision and defy the world.
No honorable and gifted man should
take judgeship if he knows that as
result of a mass -meeting led by dema-
gogues he may be hailed from the bench
And the leaders and seekers for popular
favor who are now trying to tear down
the fabric of this Government by ap-
pealing to ignorance are either shall
low amateurs in government or desper.
ate demagogues, and, in either event.
public enemes.-Public Ledger.