force. The provision which made them removable by the crown on the address of both houses of Parliament was retained and re-enacted.[41] In framing the Constitution of the United States, the objectionable feature of the English system was rejected, and its valuable provisions were retained. No one, at the stage of the proceedings which we are now examining, proposed to make the judges removable on the address of the legislature; and although at a much later period this provision was brought forward, it received the vote of a single State only. The first determination of the Convention, in committee of the whole, was, that the judges should hold their offices during good behavior; that they should receive punctually, at stated times, a fixed compensation for their services, in which no _increase_[42] or diminution should be made so as to affect the persons actually in office at the time. The appointment of the judges was by general consent, at this stage of the proceedings, vested in the Senate. * * * * * NOTE ON THE JUDICIAL TENURE. The English historians and juridical writers have not given a very satisfactory account of the purpose for which the power of removal on the address of the two Houses of Parliament was incorporated with the provision which gave the judges their commissions during good behavior. It is obvious that, if the power of removal is to be regarded as an unqualified power, to be exercised for any cause, or without the existence of any cause, the office is held during the pleasure of the legislative and executive branches of the government, and not during the official good conduct of the incumbent. In this view of it, therefore, the provision is inconsistent with the declared tenure of the commission. On the other hand, if the _power_ of removal is not to be regarded as a limitation upon the tenure of the office, but the _process_ of removal is to be considered as a mode in which the unfitness or incapacity of the incumbent is to be ascertained,--treating it as a substitute for impeachment, to be used in cases of palpable official incapacity or unfitness,--then it is not repugnant to the tenure of good behavior. In support of this view of the subject it is to be observed that, in the statute of 1 Geo. III. c. 23, the tenure of good behavior is made the leading and primary object of the enactment. The motives for it are set forth with great point and emphasis. The King is made to declare from the throne to the two houses of Parliament that he looks upon the independency and uprightness of judges as essential to the impartial administration of justice, as one of the best securities to the rights and liberties of the subject, and as most conducive to the honor of the crown. The enacting part of the