years, though the elections have been annual or biennial.]

In case of those having long terms of office, a re-election comes
more easily and commonly. A man who has been ten or twenty years
upon the bench has become set apart from the community. The
people have ceased to think of him as one of themselves, so far
as the active political and business life of the day is
concerned. His position and his work, if it has been good, have
given him a certain elevation of station. Men have learned to
trust him, and to feel that his presence on the court helps to
make liberty and property more secure. If he receives his party
nomination, he is apt to secure a majority of votes, whether the
others on the ticket are or are not elected. The opposing party
often nominates him also, and sometimes, if his own gives the
nomination to another, nominates him itself, and with success.

In New York it has been generally the case that a good judge of
the Court of Appeals or Supreme Court is re-elected until he
reaches the age limit set by the Constitution. To accomplish
this, however, it has been necessary for the bar to use constant
efforts to bring the nominating conventions of both parties to
the support of the same man or men, and personal ambition and
party feeling have on a number of occasions set up an effectual
bar. Before a recent election of two judges in that State, in
preparation for which a scheme had been suggested by which one of
the outgoing judges of each party should be re-elected, a third
candidate for the succession, himself a prominent member of the
bar and an officer of the State, published a lengthy statement of
his claims, which concluded thus: