568
Opinion of the Court
It has "no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society." Ibid. It has "neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judgment." Ibid.
Hamilton's view, and that of many other Founders, was informed by firsthand experience of the harmful consequences brought about when a King of England "made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries." The Declaration of Independence ¶ 11. And Hamilton knew that "a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will." The Federalist No. 79, at 472. For this reason, he observed, "[n]ext to permanency in office, nothing can contribute more to the independence of the judges than a fixed provision for their support." Ibid.; see also id., No. 48, at 310 (J. Madison) ("[A]s the legislative department alone has access to the pockets of the people, and has . . . full discretion . . . over the pecuniary rewards of those who fill the other departments, a dependence is thus created in the latter, which gives still greater facility to encroachments of the former").
Evans properly added that these guarantees of compensation and life tenure exist, "not to benefit the judges," but "as a limitation imposed in the public interest." 253 U. S., at 253. They "promote the public weal," id., at 248, in part by helping to induce "learned" men and women "to quit the lucrative pursuits" of the private sector, 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law *294, but more importantly by helping to secure an independence of mind and spirit necessary if judges are "to maintain that nice adjustment between individual rights and governmental powers which constitutes political liberty," W. Wilson, Constitutional Government in the United States 143 (1911).
Chief Justice John Marshall pointed out why this protection is important. A judge may have to decide "between the Government and the man whom that Government is prosecuting: between the most powerful individual in the
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