The main reason for making the Federal judges independent and politically irresponsible has not been generally recognized. Thus, in a recent work Professor Channing, while expressing some disapproval of this feature of our system, fails to offer a satisfactory explanation of its origin. "Perhaps nothing in the Constitution of the United States is more extraordinary," he tells us, "than the failure of that instrument to provide any means for getting rid of the judges of the Federal courts except by the process of impeachment. In England, in Massachusetts and in Pennsylvania, judges could be removed by the executive upon address by both branches of the legislative body.[56] In none of these cases was it necessary to allege or to prove any criminal act on the part of the judge. In colonial days the tenure of the judicial office had been of the weakest. In the royal provinces, the judges had been appointed by the Crown and had been removable at pleasure. In the charter colonies, the judges had been appointed by the legislature, and their tenure of office was generally for one year. The precariousness of the judicial office in the royal provinces had more than once led to attempts on the part of the colonists to secure greater permanency, because a permanent judiciary would afford them protection against the royal authorities. All attempts of this kind, however, had been defeated by the negative voice of the government of England. Possibly the permanence of judicial tenure which is found in the Constitution of the United States may be regarded in some sort as the result of this pre-revolutionary contest."[57] As a matter of fact, however, there is nothing extraordinary or difficult to explain in this permanency of judicial tenure which the Constitution established. It was not in the charter colonies where annual legislative appointment of judges was the rule, but in the royal provinces that efforts were made by the people to secure greater permanency of judicial tenure. They wished to give the judges more independence in the latter, because it would be the means of placing a check upon irresponsible authority, but were satisfied with a short term of office for judges in the colonies where they were elected and controlled by the legislature. Any explanation of the permanent tenure of our Federal judges "as the result of this pre-revolutionary contest" is insufficient. It was clearly a device consciously adopted by the framers of the Constitution, not for the purpose of limiting irresponsible authority, but for the purpose of setting up an authority that would be in large measure politically irresponsible.