I’ve heard it more times than I can count… “Judges are appointed for life.” This is not true! I showed my Jr. high students a copy of Article III in the Constitution. I had them see it for themselves: “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior…”
The Truth About Judicial Appointments: Good Behavior, Not Life Terms
United States v. Hatter, 532 U.S. 557, 567 (2001), explains the Good Behavior Clause, which grants federal judges the practical equivalent of life tenure unless the House of Representatives impeaches them and the Senate convicts them. In the minds of tweens and young teens, “if you behave, you stay. If you misbehave, you can be impeached, but only the Senate can throw you out of office.”
Beyond “Taxation Without Representation”: The Full List of Colonial Grievances
Here’s another misnomer: If you ask the average American why the colonies took up arms against England in the War for Independence, aka the Revolutionary War, they will say, “taxation without representation.” That was only one of 27 grievances the colonists had against King George III. Other grievances included not letting our young nation conduct trials by a jury of its own peers. Instead, the British hauled criminals in the bottom of a boat across the Atlantic Ocean to be tried by judges who neither knew our land nor our laws. England also refused to hear our many petitions to resolve our differences peacefully.
Reading the grievances in the Declaration of Independence is a real eye-opener! It wasn’t only taxation without representation, but so much more.
“A More Perfect Union”: Understanding the Real Purpose of the Constitution
One last thing we get wrong about our Founding American Documents: the first line of the Preamble to the Constitution. “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” We modernize “a more perfect union” to mean we can improve our union through a new form of government to be better than the one we have. The Founders meant “more perfect than the Articles of Confederation.” Ever read those? We had no chief executive, no power to enforce laws, no effective method of commerce, and no stable economy. The Constitution was written to address these deficiencies, not to create a new country. The Americans had already established themselves as a new nation. They sought to create a document more perfect than their first attempt, called “The Articles of Confederation.”
By using the Founders’ words correctly to match their original intent, we become a stronger United States of America.
This is Common Sense Civics and Citizenship. 🇺🇸
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Related to the concept of justice:
