Cite as: 532 U. S. 557 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
community, and the poorest and most unpopular." Proceedings and Debates of the Virginia State Convention, of 1829- 1830, p. 616 (1830). A judge's decision may affect an individual's "property, his reputation, his life, his all." Ibid. In the "exercise of these duties," the judge must "observe the utmost fairness." Ibid. The judge must be "perfectly and completely independent, with nothing to influence or contro[l] him but God and his conscience." Ibid. The "greatest scourge . . . ever inflicted," Marshall thought, "was an ignorant, a corrupt, or a dependent Judiciary." Id., at 619.
Those who founded the Republic recognized the importance of these constitutional principles. See, e. g., Wilson, Lectures on Law (1791), in 1 Works of James Wilson 363 (J. Andrews ed. 1896) (stating that judges should be "completely independent" in "their salaries, and in their offices"); McKean, Debate in Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, Dec. 11, 1787, in 2 Debates on the Federal Constitution 539 (J. Elliot ed. 1836) (the security of undiminished compensation disposes judges to be "more easy and independent"); see also 1 Kent, supra, at *294 ("[P]ermanent support" and the "tenure of their office" "is well calculated . . . to give [judges] the requisite independence"). They are no less important today than in earlier times. And the fact that we overrule Evans does not, in our view, diminish their importance.
We also agree with Evans insofar as it holds that the Compensation Clause offers protections that extend beyond a legislative effort directly to diminish a judge's pay, say, by ordering a lower salary. 253 U. S., at 254. Otherwise a legislature could circumvent even the most basic Compensation Clause protection by enacting a discriminatory tax law, for example, that precisely but indirectly achieved the forbidden effect.
Nonetheless, we disagree with Evans' application of Compensation Clause principles to the matter before it—a non-discriminatory tax that treated judges the same way it treated other citizens. Evans' basic holding was that the
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