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gentlemen who have addressed the Convention that this
is a subject of vast importance to the people of the State.
The chairman of the committee which had presented this
report (Mr. Dobbin) had stated that the independence of
the judiciary was of the last importance to the State. It
is proposed that the judiciary shall not be subject to the
apprehensions of change, and it is necessary, according to
his belief and interpretation of the Bill of Rights, that
independence must be secured. What is the meaning of
independence? Of what and whom are they to be inde-
pendent? Simply that by their action they are not re-
sponsible except by impeachment. It means independ-
ence of the appointing power. If they are obliged to sub-
mit their pretensions to the executive, if the appointing
power be there, or to the people, if the appointing power
be there, then their independence is affected by anything
which will cause them to shape their pretensions or ac-
tion towards the appointing power.
The gentleman from Harford, (Mr. Archer, ) he thought
had lost sight of this in his amendment. If the people
had the right to remove, or the Governor to remove, then
the independence of the judge is affected, if he be not of
the stern mould of the gentleman from Baltimore or the
gentleman from Anne Arundel. He (Mr. C. ) was not
particularly in favor of the life tenure, but he was in
favor of the independence of the judiciary. The gentle-
man from Anne Arundel, (Mr. Kilbourn, ) had arraigned
the last Legislature because it did not remove a certain
judge, (Judge Bond. ) He (Mr. C. ) knew nothing person-
ally of the facts, and nothing except what he had seen
in the newspapers, but he believed that this judge was
faulty; but no petition had come down here for his re-
moval, and it was the duty of those who were aware of
his misdeeds to act as prosecutors.
Mr. Kilbourn said he had only alluded to this matter
because the advocates of the life tenure had argued that a
judge could be removed by the Legislature, and it was
only to show the reluctance of citizens to act as prosecu-
tors, as he believed there had been no petitions sent here.
He thought that it would very rarely happen that a judge
would be removed in this manner. It would have been a
painful and possibly, under the circumstances, ineffectual
duty last winter.
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