unsuccessfully, in Kentucky as a punishment for giving a judicial
opinion that a stay-law recently passed by the legislature was
unconstitutional. A two-thirds vote of each house was required,
and as in the lower house, though it voted for an address by a
large majority, this could not be obtained, the proceeding was
allowed to drop.[Footnote: Niles' Register, XXII, 266. See
_ante_ p. 114.] In all there have been in the whole country
since 1776 not over thirty removals, whether on impeachment and
conviction or on address of the two houses, of judges of a higher
grade than justices of the peace.[Footnote: See Foster,
"Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,"
Appendix, 633.]

Wholesale removals have also, in rare instances, been effected
for similar purposes by abolishing courts, the judges of which
held during good behavior.[Footnote: See Chap. VII.] Maryland
was the first to do this, abolishing a court and re-establishing
it at the same session, almost in the words of the former law.
Congress followed in 1802 by repealing the statute of the year
before by which a new scheme of Circuit Courts was arranged and
under which sixteen Federalists had been appointed to the bench.
Massachusetts did the same thing in 1811 with respect to her
Courts of Common Pleas.[Footnote: See Chap. VIII.]

The occurrence of vacancies has sometimes been prevented in a
similar manner when the nominating or appointing authority was
politically opposed to the legislature. The existence of a
supreme court is required by all our Constitutions, but the
number of the judges is frequently left to be fixed from time to
time by statute. The Federalists, when they were about to go out