And there is a still greater
absurdity in subjecting the decisions of men, selected for their
knowledge of the laws, acquired by long and laborious study, to the
revision and control of men who, for want of the same advantage, cannot
but be deficient in that knowledge. The members of the legislature will
rarely be chosen with a view to those qualifications which fit men for
the stations of judges; and as, on this account, there will be great
reason to apprehend all the ill consequences of defective information,
so, on account of the natural propensity of such bodies to party
divisions, there will be no less reason to fear that the pestilential
breath of faction may poison the fountains of justice. The habit of
being continually marshalled on opposite sides will be too apt to stifle
the voice both of law and of equity.
These considerations teach us to applaud the wisdom of those States who
have committed the judicial power, in the last resort, not to a part of
the legislature, but to distinct and independent bodies of men. Contrary
to the supposition of those who have represented the plan of the
convention, in this respect, as novel and unprecedented, it is but a
copy of the constitutions of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia; and the preference which has been given to those models is
highly to be commended.
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