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He had heard nothing from them which indicated that
life tenure had been a failure. The gentlemen said that
this was an experiment because life tenure was coupled
with election, and he denied that it was an experiment.
He had never heard of life tenure and election going to-
gether, but he did not see that there was any absolute
connection between appointment and tenure for life. He
was in favor of election by the people, because he believed
the people would be more likely to secure upright and inde-
pendent judges. The Executive was just as likely, if not
more so, to be subject to partisan influences as the people.
There was just as much reason why the life tenure and
election should be coupled together as the life tenure and
appointment.
The gentleman from Harford (Mr. Farnandis) had not
pointed to any instance where the life tenure had been a
failure, except perhaps in the one instance adduced rela-
tive to the Supreme Court. The gentleman said that the
merits of the term-system judge should not be tested in
times of revolution, but it was in the testing time of revo-
lution when the fitness of a judge should be tested. It
was when the clash of arms prevailed that the safeguards
of liberty should be thrown around the people by the
judge. Had there been an independent judiciary in the
time of the French revolution, how different would have
been the history of those times. His people were in favor
of the life tenure, he believed, and he should go home with
a sad heart if this term of years, which would open the
door to every possible evil in our jurisprudence, was in-
serted in this constitution.
Mr. Garey had held the opinion that the only proper
way to secure an independent judiciary was to have the
appointment system, but after coming to this Convention
and bestowing great attention upon the subject, he had
come to the conclusion that such a system would not be
proper at this time, or acceptable to the people of Mary-
land. He had then thought that the life tenure would
possibly be the means of securing an independence in the
judiciary, but this also must be looked into. We had had
here in less than twenty years three peaceful revolutions
which changed our form of government. Suppose the life
tenure policy had been adopted in 1851? In 1864, all
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