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Grievance #9 of the Declaration of Independence

Can you trust the courts if judges answer to the king?

In Grievance #9 of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Melissa Dow, professor at the University of West Florida, explains how King George III made colonial judges dependent on him for their jobs and salaries.

Instead of being paid by local legislatures, judges were paid by the Crown. That meant their loyalty could shift away from the people and toward the king, raising serious concerns about fairness and bias in the legal system.

This grievance connects to a bigger idea: separation of powers. Political thinkers like Montesquieu argued that liberty depends on keeping government powers separate, especially the courts from political control.

By influencing the judiciary, colonists believed the king was undermining one of the key protections of freedom: independent courts.

This is Part 9 of our 27-part series breaking down every grievance that led to the American Revolution, building toward Independence Day.

0:00 My name is Dr. Melissa Dow, and I would

0:02 like to lodge a complaint against King

0:04 George III. He has made judges dependent

0:08 on his will alone for the tenure of

0:10 their offices and the amount and payment

0:13 of their salaries. To understand this

0:15 grievance, we need to answer two

0:17 questions.

0:19 First, what specific action does the

0:21 Declaration object to in these lines?

0:24 Way back in 1701, the British government

0:27 had declared that judges in Great

0:28 Britain would be independent of royal

0:31 control. However, this law did not apply

0:33 to the colonies, and in 1772,

0:37 the colonists received word that their

0:39 judges would not be paid by local

0:41 legislatures, but would instead be paid

0:44 out of the royal treasury. This made

0:46 those judges answerable only to the king

0:48 himself, and it made them susceptible to

0:51 pressure from the king. The second

0:53 question is what is the principle behind

0:56 this objection? The great political

0:58 philosopher Montesquieu pointed to the

1:00 independence of the judiciary as one of

1:03 the great strengths of the British

1:04 system of government. As he puts it,

1:07 "There is no liberty if the judiciary

1:10 power be not separated from the

1:12 legislative and the executive." What he

1:15 is describing is the separation of

1:17 powers, the principle that governments

1:20 exercise different kinds of power, law

1:22 making, law enforcing, and controversy

1:25 deciding,

1:26 and that these different powers need to

1:28 be wielded by different sets of people

1:31 if liberty is to be protected. In this

1:34 grievance, the colonies declare that

1:37 King George has changed the structure of

1:40 their government in a way that threatens

1:42 the liberty of the very people he is

1:45 meant to protect.

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