De Noailles, _Cent Ans de Republique aux Etats-Unis_, II,
232.]

Most of the old thirteen States in their first Constitutions
provided that the judges of their highest courts should hold
office during good behavior, or until seventy years of age. New
York at first put the age of superannuation at sixty, but after
losing by this the services of Chancellor Kent for some of his
best and most fruitful years, postponed it to seventy. Georgia
was the first to set the fashion of short terms. Her
Constitution of 1798 provided that the judges of her highest
court should be "elected" for three years, but that those of her
inferior courts should be "appointed" by the legislature and hold
during good behavior. The legislature construed this as allowing
it to frame such a scheme of election as it thought best, and
that adopted was for the House to nominate three, from whom the
Senate elected one.[Footnote: Schouler, "Constitutional Studies,"
65.]

In all but three States (Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode
Island) at the present time all judges hold for a term of years,
and as a general rule those of the higher courts have longer
terms than those of the inferior ones. The change from life
tenure to that for a term of years was partly due to several
instances which occurred early in the nineteenth century, in
which it was evident that judges had outlived their usefulness.
Judge Pickering of the District Court of New Hampshire lost his
reason, and to get rid of him it became necessary to go through
the form of impeachment. In 1803, Judge Bradbury of the Supreme
Judicial Court of Massachusetts, who had been incapacitated by