Note 1389 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
Debates, 21st Cong. 2d Sess. 542.
This was the last formal attempt, but one, made in Congress during Marshall's lifetime, to impair the efficiency of National courts. The final attack was made by Joseph Lecompte, a Representative from Kentucky, who on January 27, 1832, offered a resolution instructing the Judiciary Committee to "inquire into the expediency of amending the constitution ... so that the judges of the Supreme Court, and of the inferior courts, shall hold their offices for a limited term of years." On February 24, the House, by a vote of 141 to 27, refused to consider Lecompte's resolution, ignoring his plea to be allowed to explain it. (Debates, 22d Cong. 1st Sess. 1856-57.) So summary and brusque—almost contemptuous—was the rejection of Lecompte's proposal, as almost to suggest that personal feeling was an element in the action taken by the House.