Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps ... Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.

• Thomas Jefferson, 1820