would be similar to the office of Attorney Gen-
eral in England.
Anterior to the act of 1817, the duty of the
Attorney General would be essentially different
from those of the Attorney General of England,
where it was the duty to take care of the inter-
ests of the crown in all civil causes. He hardly
knew of a civil case here, in which the Attorney
General had rendered any assistance. Accord-
ing to the document to which he had referred, the
Attorney General attended in no case to the interests
of the State in a civil suit, without being
paid for it, independently of the fees and per-
quisites of his office. He knew of no such case.
He supposed the act of 1817 to beintended in
some degree to remedy this defect. It was not
necessary now to call attention to that act, as it
had been subsequently repealed by the act of
1821, in which the duties of the Attorney Gen-
eral were defined. The act of 1831, provided as
follows:
"That from and after the passage of this act,
the Governor shall nominate, and by and with the
advice and consent of the council, appoint and
commission a person of sound legal knowledge,
who shall be styled Attorney General of Mary-
land, and who, previous to, and during his acting
as such, shall reside in this State; and it shall be
the duty of the said Attorney General, to prose-
cute and defend on the part of the State, all cases
now depending, or which may hereafter be
brought in or removed to any of the counties of
this State, by or against the State, or. wherein
the State shall or may be interested, in the same
manner, as the Attorney General heretofore was
accustomed to do, or could do; and he shall have,
exercise, and use all and every the powers and
authorities inland relating to the same, as the
Attorney General heretofore had used and exercised,
or can have, use and exercise in similar
cases; and he shall .give his opinion and advice
whenever he shall be required by the General
Assembly, or either branch thereof, by the Gov-
ernor and Council, or by the Treasurer of the
Eastern and Western Shore, or any deputy he
may appoint, on any matter or subject depend-
ing betore them."
The object of this act was to define the duties
more particularly, and to give the Attorney Gen-
eral the authority to appoint deputies. All the
duties were provided lor in this act; and were
all transferred to the Prosecuting Attorneys of the
several counties and of the city of Baltimore.
The Attorney General had nothing to do with it,
according to the scheme now proposed.
The proposition of the chairman of the com-
mittee, would dispose of the entire first branch of
the act of 1831, and devolve the duties now
nominally discharged by the Attorney General,
upon the county prosecutors. Who could doubt
that under this system, an intelligent people, in
any part of the State, would select individuals
quite competent to the discharge of these duties ?
What would be the remaining duties of the At-
torney General? To give his opinion and ad-
vice whenever required so to do by the General
Assembly, or by either branch thereof by the Go-
vernor and council, or the treasurer of the East- |
ern or Western Shore, upon any question pend-
ing before them. He would ask the Convention
if they were now prepared to continue this office
of Attorney General, for no other purpose than
to give opinions.
The gentleman from Queen Anne's, bad spoken
of the salary What gentleman, it had been
asked, would take the office for $2500 & year, or
for less than that amount? He doubted whether
it would he taken by a competent person, for less
than $3000. The system under which they were
now acting, was other than that. Taking $23000,
the amount paid for the last twelve years, it
would amount to but $1700 per annum, so that it
seemed that the Governor and the State, had had
the benefit of the best talent and most eminent
counsel in the State, at $1700. Upon every prin-
ciple, therefore, the office was shown to be en-
tirely useless, and experience had proved that a
fixed salary would not dispense at all with the ob-
jection be had stated.
He was willing to concede that this amendment
was not stringent enough or broad enough
to remedy the evil entirely. The argument of
the gentleman over the way, (Mr. Spencer,) was
founded upon abuses that might creep in, under
this. amendment, in the Legislature. The gen-
tleman supposed that every case that occurred
was to be presented to the Legislature and decided
per se. That was not his intention. He in-
tended to have the Legislature take up the sub-
ject and prescribe regulations at once, by which
the Governor would be bound. when he came to
select counsel. They would prescribe some
general rule by which the compensation should
be regulated by the government. That was his
intention, and this would prevent the abuses
which the gentleman had suggested. If that
gentleman required that the amendment should
be more strict, if he would make suggestions as
to the mode, he, (Mr. McLane,) would cheer-
fully adopt them. He would gladly put it out of
the power, either of the Governor or of the Le-
gislature to abuse the power, should either of
them be disposed so to do, which he did not be-
lieve would ever be the case. He could, there-
fore, see no difficulty growing out of it. The
office of Attorney General was no longer the
constitutional office. It was an office of the law
and if the bill was passed, the Legislature might
create the office of Attorney General just as it
had already been created. It might be done
now, by Act of Assembly, as well as in 1821 ;
and, he thought it important to prevent it. When
the second section should come under considera-
tion, he would offer an amendment to prevent it.
In the mean time, he could see no benefit to re-
sult from the appointment of an officer with a
fixed salary of $1700, $2800 or $3000, unless it
could be shown that the duties of that officer
could thus be most economically discharged.
The abuses of the Legislature, which could be
guarded against, would constitute no objection to
his proposition.
Mr. SPENCER said that every one would ac-
knowledge that it was the duty of the Conven-
tion to adopt a Constitution which would limit
the expenses of the State as much as possible, |
