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a veil upon the evils of the past. They know that the
Convention of 1851, fresh from the people, and with full
experience of the workings of the life-tenure system, pro-
nounced that it was a failure, and that a new and better
system must be devised. It could not be said that that
convention was incompetent.
The chairman of this committee (Mr. Dobbin) had paid
that body the highest compliment. Both these systems
had been tried. The life tenure had prevailed from the
time of the Revolution, but after it was changed and the
elective system for a term of years adopted, there was no
instance of any return ever having been made to the old
system. New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Vir-
ginia had changed since 1815, but Georgia had inaugu-
rated the elective system in 1798, and the fact that the
system had been continued showed that there was merit
in it. He maintained that it had been a success here, that
judges had sat on the bench of Maryland since 1851 who
would have done honor to that bench in its palmiest days,
judges who had stood up for private rights as nobly and
as staunchly as any mortal man. He spoke of the sys-
tem generally, and not of one or two particular cases. The
fact was that where this system had been tried, it had
never been deviated from. His friend from Allegany,
(Mr. McKaig, ) had spoken of judges stumping the State
and electioneering for office. His friend's experience was
different from his (Mr. F's. ) He had never known of
any judge going into the political arena. In regard to the
term of fifteen years, it should be made sufficiently per-
manent to secure the services of a competent man. If a
man was sagacious enough to get himself elected to the
bench, he would be sagacious enough to know that the
proper way to secure popular favor was to administer jus-
tice impartially and correctly. Very few cases occur
where a political question is submitted to a judge, and if
it does happen, he admitted that a judge might waver,
but the grand model, the Supreme Court of the United
States had wavered in their duty to the Constitution.
After having made up their decision on a case affecting
the dearest rights of large numbers of their fellow-citi-
zens, (referring to the test oath decision, ) they had with-
held that decision for months through a base fear of party
clamor. Human nature was fallible, and neither the one
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