"It may be seriously questioned whether under any circumstances the elective system is adequate for the purpose designed. All classes, high and low, sooner or later come before the tribunal of justice. Its judgments and decrees affect the humblest, as well as the most powerful individual and control the strongest combinations of men. We know that it is utterly impossible to keep the nomination and election clear of mere political influences and those of the worst kind. It is said that revolutions never go backward; nevertheless in the teeth of the adage I confess that I can see no better way of selecting judges than the mode pointed out by the unamended constitutions and the laws and by the general good sense of mankind. I believe that this method is wise and conservative, in harmony with our institutions and sufficiently democratic to satisfy the people. All the rest is faction, demagogism and cabal. The judge should represent no interest, no party, only the law; he is an umpire between man and man, between the individual and the body social. "What is required in the judge is ability, learning, integrity. In public station it is as necessary to be thought honest as to be so, and the moment the popular mind once takes in the true position of the elective judge, the moment that it perceives the magistrate to be possessed of neither true power nor real dignity, and exposed perpetually to temptation, that moment the influence and usefulness of the judge will be destroyed. Their judgments in such cases will be received without respect and obeyed only so far as they can be enforced, and if the people shall ever break down and trample under foot the defences of unpopular power; the Judiciary will be scouted from their seats, their filthy and tattered ermine will be torn from their backs, and they will be driven out into hopeless ignominy as the meanest of sycophants, and the most truculent of demagogues.... A hundred and eighty years ago the English parliament, sick of the miseries resulting from a corrupt judiciary, changed the tenure of the office, abolished their dependence on the sovereign and made the tenure of their existence dependent on their good behavior alone. From that time to this the English judiciary has risen in character and influence. With us the system is elective. The judicial candidate, like a fish monger, goes with his wares into a market overt. He advertises his opinions--his promises, he makes his pledges, he puts a premium upon the ballot, he weighs to a nicety the purchasable value of negro electors. The rival candidate does the same, and hence the office is purchasable at the price of manhood, integrity, learning and capacity. Thus the whole machinery of the courts is run with an eye single to making political capital for the radical party and intensifying their hatred toward the South.