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in itself, their interest in the ideas upon which our institutions were founded, that the first impulse which moved them, when they found themselves upon the Bench, was to assert with the utmost force all the dig nity, all the power, all the accumulated tra ditions of their time in favor of their country's interest. In order to do this, the partisan was at once and from the very necessity of the situation merged in the patriot and the jurist. OUR SUPREME COURT JUDGES AS POLITICIANS
The example thus early set has since been followed. Every chief justice has come to that higli distinction after passing through the lanes, alleys, streets, or high ways of a party. As a rule, they have gone through many grades of political ef fort, humble as well as high. And, in no instance, has this system brought to the Bench a man who could be called, or thought of as, a political chief justice. In most cases, they have been of such strong characteristics that they have either dom inated the court or have largely contributed toward decisions involving great principles and that, too, oftentimes against the con tentions of the extreme element of the party from which they had originally been drawn. No more striking illustration of this independence can be cited than that of Chief Justice Chase. In politics, he was the strong advocate of the principles of his party. In executive office he thought it among the necessities of his career to suggest, to pass, and to execute a law mak ing paper money legal tender. But, when the question came up before him as a mem ber of the Supreme Court of the United States not only were all his party training, ideas, and attachments thrown to the winds, but his own action as Secretary of the Treasury was reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States, a result which could not have been accomplished without his vote. The policy which has thus commended
itself, in filling the office of chief justice, has been followed, almost without excep tion, in the appointment of associate jus tices and the same results have been mani fest — that is, a fairness and determination to be judicial that would not have been expected when the effect of partisanship had been studied in the same men when they were in politics alone. All down through the Federal courts, this same policy has been followed almost without exception, every President having made it a part of his policy in judicial, as in other offices, to fill them with the adherents of his own party ideas and doctrines. But the same general result has been uniformly apparent, the partisan quite uniformly disappearing in the judge. This is not to say that all Presidents have equally made the best use of their offices in the appointment of judges. But, whether a President has done ill or has done well, whether he has appointed the man most acceptable to the Bar, its natural leader in any given district, the effect has still been the same. The court might have been im proved by better selection, but so far as the intrusion of partisanship is concerned, neither carelessness, nor oversight, nor lack of interest on the part of Presidents, hasaffected the principle under discussion or qualified its success. THE
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If this rule had not been found to operate also in elective state and local courts, it might have been attributed to appoint ment with a life tenure, but the truth is, that all through our system, even to the smallest courts, county or even police, the same general trend has been apparent. It is, therefore, safe to maintain that in no country in all the world may suitors ap proach the courts with stronger assurance that justice will not be turned one way or the other because of the previous public
