Mr. BLAKISTONE. I move to postpone the
Order limiting the debate.
Mr. MORGAN. I hope it will not be done.
Mr. BLAKISTONE. My object in making the
motion is, that the gentleman from Baltimore
city has occupied so little the attention of this
body, and this is a subject in which he says he
and his constituents are greatly interested.
Mr. STEWART, of Baltimore city, hoped that
this would not be done.
Mr. BLAKISTONE said that if the gentleman
did not desire it, he would withdraw his motion.
Mr. STEWART then withdrew his motion to
postpone.
Mr. CRISFIELD renewed the motion, and said:
I think that this is an important question, and
I believe that this Convention, or at least a great
many of its members, have taken erroneous
views of it. The question to be determined is,
is this court which is asked for by the gentleman
from Baltimore city necessary? It will be re-
membered that I made a suggestion to my
friends from Baltimore city, to allow them, in a
different form, the same amount of judicial labor
which they will have if their proposition now
presented shall be carried. They thought that
the form in which I proposed to give it was not
the proper form. They deaired a distribution
of the jurisdiction among the several courts,
instead of having it concentrated in one court,
with an additional number of judges. My own
judgment is, that the judicial labor which is now
asked for is necessary for the proper transaction
of. the business in that city. The number of
suits now pending in that court, as a common
law court, for city business, amounts annually
to some thirteen hundred cases. This does not
include the number of appeals from justices of
the peace, of which no returns have been made,
but which the gentleman from Baltimore city
(Mr, Stewart) states amounts annually to some-
thing near one thousand. The returns do not
show the amount of criminal business done in
the city, which is now proposed to be transferred
to some one of the three judges which are to be
established by this system. You will then have,
if, this proposition of the gentleman from St.
Mary's succeeds, but two judges to perform the
civil business arising in that city. And what is
it? You have thirteen hundred suits brought
upon the common law side, and some ninety-
eight trials per annum, upon an average of five
years. You have, as the gentleman from Balti-
more city says, nearly one thousand appeal cases;
and this court will have to discharge all the du-
ties now performed by the court of chancery!
Now, we find, by the returns, that they pass, on
an average, one hundred and twenty-four decrees
per annum in the Baltimore county court.
We have no return of the amount of business
which comes from that city to the High Court of
Chancery, which, by a vote of this Convention,
is to be abolished; but I understand from a gentleman
familiar with the business of that court,
that there are filed in that court some three hun-
dred bills per annum, and that fully one-third of
them are from the city of Baltimore. Thus they
have thirteen hundred common law cases to be |
disposed of; they have, according to the estimate
of the gentleman from Baltimore city, one thousand
appeals from justices of the peace, and
will have, in addition to the number of chance-
ry cases heretofore disposed of in that city, if
the estimate which has been given me by a gen-
tleman familiar with the business be correct,
one hundred equity cases by the destruction of
the High Court of Chancery. I ask any gentle-
man in this house, who knows any thing upon
the subject, whether two judges, which is all the
gentleman from St. Mary's proposes, can dispose
of that business? What is the result now? You
have, by a practice which has grown up in the
city of Baltimore, to meet the exigencies, of
business, Baltimore county court severed into
three distinct tribunals. You have one judge
in one room, performing the common law ju-
risdiction; you have another in another room,
presiding over appeal cases; and another, in a
third room, transacting the chancery business.
It is, in my judgment, utterly impossible that
the business of the city of Baltimore can be
fairly transacted by the number of judges which
my friend from St. Mary's proposes, and we
know, too, that the business of the city is annually
increasing. For this reason, I think
the wishes of Baltimore, in this respect, ought
to be gratified. I think it would be unwise
to refuse this additional judge, even if we deem
the necessity not altogether apparent. What
motive have we to refuse it except the additional
expense it will be upon the treasury?—some two
or three thousand dollars per year. If it is neces-
sary that the city of Baltimore should have this
judge, you should give it. The people of Baltimore
think it necessary, no one can deny the necessity
now or prospectively; and I ask my friends
who are opposing this proposition, those who
desire to preserve the present system, whether
they are willing to force the people of Baltimore
to vote. down any constitution we may frame,
whether they are willing to run the risk of another
convention; and put their defence upon the
ground of refusing the people of that city an ad-
ditional judge, who all must admit is necessary ?
I am not willing to allow Baltimore any unjust
power. I stood here and battled as far as I was
capable of, against an increase of the political
power of the city, which I thought would be in-
jurious to the people of my section of country,
and I am ready to do it again. But when she
asks for necessary labor to perform her judicial-
business, we have no interest in it, save and ex-
cept the mere pittance which comes from the
treasury to pay the judge, and I am not willing
to refuse it. Although I might deem it unimportant
and unnecessary, I am not willing to
drive the people into an opposition to the constitution,
and thus keep the excitement alive, upon
the mere ground of saving that sum every year.
It is an indefensible position. You cannot defend
yourselves before the people upon it. I may pro-
bably vote against the constitution which you
shall adopt. I do not believe the public interest
will be better maintained by it than by the old
constitution. But when I take ground against
the constitution, if I am forced to take it all, |
