By both the Federal and State Constitutions, in the United States, the judiciary has always been regarded as an equal and co-ordinate branch of government, with the legislative and executive. It was accordingly held, within the past century, that neither the President nor the Governor could remove a judge, during the term of office for which he was elected or appointed,[59] but the only way to remove or recall a judge, was by impeachment for criminal or corrupt conduct.[60] It is thus a serious question whether the experience of the past century, in the United States, has vindicated the method followed in so many states, of selecting judges, for a moderate term, by an elective system, subject to impeachment for positive misfeasance in office. Many protests, other than the growing demand for a popular recall of judges, may be directly or indirectly traced to this method of selecting judges and as the demands and protests come from states where the tenure to office is for the shorter terms, it seems that this general policy, when applied to the judiciary, is condemned both by the examples of history and the practice and experience of the past century, in the United States. There is little doubt but that the great Chief Justice Marshall would have been recalled, after his decision against the Government, in the trial of Aaron Burr, for treason, if the recall of judges by popular vote had then obtained, in the United States. The power of Jefferson’s administration was used, unsparingly, to obtain Burr’s conviction, and he was already convicted in the forum of public sentiment, for the populace believed him guilty. The Chief Justice, however, firm in the consciousness of right, with the true judicial poise, disdained, with equanimity, the clamor of the populace and refused to sacrifice the individual, to appease the public wrath.[61] No wonder that through the genius of this patriot, the Court he presided over was “placed upon a pedestal of imperishable granite and has become the admiration of the publicists throughout the civilized world.”[62] If such a system had then obtained, the country would have been denied the genius and ability of this just man, for he would never have been responsible to the fickle flames of a vacillating public sentiment for the correctness of his opinions. Addressing himself upon the necessity for an absolutely independent judiciary, Chief Justice Marshall said: “It is to the last degree important that he should be rendered perfectly and completely independent with nothing to control him but God and his conscience.”