Experience, however, soon showed in what
way they were to become the most dangerous;
that the insufficiency of the means provided
for their removal gave them a freehold and
irresponsibility in office; that their decisions,
seeming to concern individual suitors only,
pass silent and unheeded by the public at large;

that these decisions, nevertheless, become law
by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the
foundations of the constitution, and working its
change by construction, before anyone has
perceived that that invisible and helpless worm
has been busily employed in consuming its substance.

In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if
secured against all liability to account.

Thomas Jefferson: letter to Monsieur A. Coray, Oct 31, 1823