for if they are qualified to take a man from so-
ciety and make him ajudge, they certainly will
be less obnoxious to any objection urged origi-
nally, for they will be less apt to commit errors
in re-electing him, having ascertained whether
he is qualified to hold the position of Judge by
actual experiment,
Mr. HICKS said, I do not intend to consume
the time of this body, as I trust we are now ap-
proaching rapidly to the close of our important
labors; but as the author of the proposition now
pending, which I conceive would be a very im-
portant addition to this section, I feel that I am
bound to perform, as best I can, the responsi-
bility which I consider devolves upon me as a
friend of this measure. I think I should have
forborne even to have added a single remark to
those heretofore submitted by me, but for a re-
mark or two which fell from the gentleman
from Baltimore city, (Mr. Brent.) He emphati-
cally said that all these efforts to obtain the best
lawyers in our bar as the judiciary of the State
was a want of confidence in the people—that
we were unwilling to trust the people. I
speak alone for myself, and I say to my friend
it is not so with me. I have entire confidence
in the people, if they are let alone; but I cannot
say that I have the same amount of confidence
in agitators that I have in the people. I have
long been convinced that if the people were let
alone, undisturbed by party agents, they will in-
variably come to right conclusions.
Mr. BRENT, of Baltimore city. I understand
the gentleman to say that he has entire, confi-
dence in the people. Does the gentleman be-
lieve that they can be duped by agitators?
Mr. HICKS. I believe they can be misled,
and I believe that they have been misled, and
no man in his right senses can doubt it. I have
lived too long myself to be duped quite so easily
as some others. If certain persons wish to se-
cure offices, they must multiply them. If it takes
agitation to get up a feeling to enable a portion
of the people of the State of Maryland or any
other State, to provide offices or places, it must
be done. When you talk of the people, I de-
sire it to be understood that I am emphatically
one of the people. I said, in my place, a few
days since, that I have not connected with my
family a member of the legal profession. Then
I cannot be charged with advocating the crea-
tion of new offices and the increasing of sala-
ries, with a view to benefit myself or those con-
nected with me, by birth or personally, as
judgeships will not be in the way, I feel that I
am here untrammeled. But I will not stand
here and hear it charged that we want confi-
dence in the people, that we are not willing to
trust the people, to whom I, for one, am proud
to belong, I never intend to do this. I look to
the safety of the people. It has been my lot, in
a very humble way, long to mingle in the de-
liberations of bodies somewhat similar to this,
and I begin to think we have entirely misunder-
stood the object for which we were called to-
gether; that ill place of coming here to make a
constitution, we have come here to legislate. |
I have but one design in this particular, and that
is to provide by our action here, a safe, pure
and independent judiciary for the people of this
State; for upon this I consider their entire in-
terests depend. To this I look with an amount
of interest that outstrips all other interests con-
nected with our doings, and if I stand alone in
my votes, I shall be proud for them to see and
know that I have done my duty in this par-
ticular. What is the character of your courts
of law? Everything has been done to gratify
the people. They do not care about it, so that
their persons, property and lives are taken care
of. All they desire is that justice shall be well
administered. They having very little interest
in it or bar judges, looking only to evenhanded
justice. Your courts of justice now have
scarcely the amount of dignity which forty or
fifty years ago was thrown around a single jus-
tice of the peace, sitting at a cross road. And
why? Because of this eternal clamor, made by
demagogues, by men looking to promotion, and
who say you must not do this, you must not do
that, it is not very popular. I think such a
thing will have the effect to make such a man
judge, such a man attorney, such a man regis-
ter. It gives us power. For Heaven's sake,
never, allow a feeling of this kind to come into
your courts of justice. Your wife, your chil-
dren, your property, all that is near and dear to
you, personally and pecuniarily, and in every
way, is involved in this request. But I do not
wish to be understood as saying that this class
of our people—I mean the professional part—
is not as highly honorable and as useful in their
places as others, not so, however, when they
get out of their proper places, as any other
class of the community. I have as much con-
fidence and respect for them as I have for any
others, when they are out of the way of impro-
per influences, such as making money political
preferment, &c. &c. I am unwilling, as a
delegate from as pure a county as any in the
State, to sit in my place quietly, and bear this
sort of denunciation against those who honestly
desire and make no effort to protect and take
care of the rights of the people. You tell me
that you are not looking to the arrangement of
places for A or B or C. If all these things can
be done without inflicting injury upon the people
of the State, I have not the slightest objection.
I have, however, just here some misgiving, I
confess, I have no aspirations of this sort.
I stand here feebly battling with great odds
against me, a plain farmer, with some little ex-
perience—not very limited though, for I have
mingled a long time in every class of mankind
and so far as the rights of the people are con-
cerned, and so far as the wishes of the people
are ascertained and can be carried out, there is
no man more anxious to do his part in carrying
out those interests than myself. But when I
see what I think to be a design to answer par-
ticular purposes, to carry out particular views
which I think are adverse, in theory and prac-
tice, to the interests of the people, I cannot sit
silently, and let it go on. I have but one object
in view. If I know myself, as I have before re- |
