services of the best men of the legal profession
upon the bench for ten years? Can the people of
Maryland expect individuals to give up the early
part of their lives and a steady, lucrative, and hon-
orable profession, and just as they have entered
upon a career of successful practice and are about
to reap the reward of their past labor, to turn
aside and serve ten years on the bench, where the
salary will he small, and the result will be that
they will be compelled, at the end of ten years, to
retire and spend their old age in poverty and ob-
scurity? Individuals look to their own interest
and the interests of their families and those de-
pendent upon them, and they cannot afford to
make so great a sacrifice as that. You will not
have men of learning and ability, and industrious
habits to consent to serve upon your bench. You
may obtain, as the honorable gentleman from
Queen Anne's said, young men of inferior char-
acter, who have not yet acquired the confidence
of the public, and have not as yet manifested
that degree of talent, learning and skill which
would enable them to command rewards and
emolnments in their profession. You will, there-
fore, probably necessitate the election of inferior
men. If you do not obtain those, it will be older
men, who have shown themselves deficient in ca-
pacity and unable to acquire practice, or to ob-
tain lucrative employment at the bar—unable to
adjudicate properly the cases which might be
brought before them. As a last resort, such men
will consent to serve upon the bench for ten years
This high function, so interesting to every man
in the community, coming home to his right to
property, liberty, and lile, will be performed by
inferior men, while every man in the community
would desire to see the office filled by men of the
highest talents, purest integrity, and the most
untiring industry that the profession can afford.
Would to God that you would give a salary to
secure such men; but I can hope for no such thing
in the existing condition of things.
An argument is urged with force and earnest-
ness by my esteemed friend from Baltimore
county, against the re-eligibility of those func-
tionaries, which would seem to assume that a
judge who would win public favor by the dis-
charge of official duty, must necessarily swerve
from the righteous performance of that duty.
That is the idea upon which the whole argu-
ment against re-eligibility is based. The argu-
ment appears to be that public favor is not to
be won by the faithful, honorable, and virtuous
discharge of official duties, but by base bending
to vile passions. Let gentlemen reflect that
this carries with it a most grave imputation
upon the judgment, virtue, and integrity of the
electors of the State. If it be true that the
electors of Maryland or of any other republic,
are thus depraved, that they are so corrupt and
regardless of their own best interests, God help
the Republic—God help all chance or hope of
security and perpetuity to our rights and liber-
ties in any department of the government. But
I am sure it will not be so. My honorable friend
cannot think so, when he comes to reflect se-
riously upon it. When a person comes before |
the public for their suffrages for any office, does
he not base his claims to the public confidence
upon his virtuous deeds, his patriotism, his in-
tegrity, his honor, his devotion to right and
truth? Such are the position upon which his
claims are always based. And who is it that
commands the applause of the people? Is it not
the enlightened, virtuous, impartial man? And
can you admit by implication, in this bill, the
assertion that the judge can secure public favor
by a different course? It is to be presumed that
the very hope of re-election would animate his
heart to pursue more strictly and impartially, if
possible, the course of integrity, in order that
his course may abide the test of human scruti-
ny and watchfulness. While a few may turn
from him to the ambitious demagogue, or the
corrupt politician, the virtuous community will
only the more earnestly and steadfastly rally
around and sustain him. So long then as the
people are pure and enlightened, and worthy to
be free, so long will virtuous conduct be the
safest and most ready avenue to the public ap-
probation.
"Temptation to do wrong!" My friend from
Frederick, (Mr. Johnson,) answered that by
showing that in this, as in many other instan-
ces, the temptation to do right is far stronger
than the temptation to do wrong. It is natural,
that he who is upon the bench, should desire to
continue in office. He could not wish at the
end of ten years to go into obscurity and pover-
ty. Why not leave it to the judgment of the
people for whom he acts, to say that if he has
performed the services faithfully and ably for
ten years, he may continue to perform them for
ten years more. It is more than that to the
judge. It is giving him that which, of all things,
the human heart yearns after. It is approba-
tion—the approbation of the wise and good,
The strongest feeling of the human bosom, that
which leads to most of the noble deeds we ad-
mire in our race, is the love of approbation—
the love of the commendation of our fellow-
men. Dare any man say or believe that the
judge on his bench, feeling that impulse, will
ever seek to gratify it by swerving from the path
of rectitude and honor? That could only bring
upon them condemnation and the loss of the
public confidence and regard.
Mr. BUCHANAN, This subject, I am perfectly
aware, is already exhausted; but I nevertheless
cannot consent that the vote should be taken
without indicating in advance how I shall vote,
and I rise as much for that as to present a view
which alone seems to have escaped the very in-
telligent gentlemen who have discussed this
question. I came here devoted especially to
one particular subject. Of all things else that
desired, of all things that I strove for in the
campaign through which I passed, was the right
to be guaranteed by this Convention to elect the
judges by the sovereign voice of the people.
That was what moved me first, particularly.
That was what moved the State particularly.
It was the great absorbing leading question. |
