Legislature for anything. Here I take issue
with the gentleman. Never, while I held a seat
in the Legislature, did I refuse to vote for any
reasonable proposition desired by Baltimore; and
I was more willing to do this, because she was
unable singly to carry that which she wanted,
whilst the counties, united, could. Had least a
vote against the proposition to permit the Legis-
lature to give her another judge, because, as the
gentleman says, such was the hostility towards
Baltimore, in the Legislature, that she could never
get that or any thing else, I should thereby have
cast a reflection upon the Legislature, and upon
the generous people represented by that body,
which the past history of that body and that peo-
ple, does not and will not justify me in doing.
And the gentleman from Baltimore will permit
me to say to him that if he will look back a little
into the history of the State, and see that body
voting, generously and without stint or meanness,
millions upon millions of the public money to
thread the State with railroads and canals, that
the treasures of commerce might he emptied into
the lap of Baltimore, to accumulate within her
bosom, power, richness, and greatness and num-
bers; and if he will now observe that people,
with the tax gatherer wringing from them a por-
tion of their annual substance to pay for these
avenues of trade, without a murmur of opposition
from any county in the State, he will at once see
that their generous impulses which has poured
out Millions for Baltimore, would not, upon &
reasonable showing, refuse the small appropria-
tion required to further the ends of public justice,
by paying the salary of another judge.
Do not understand me here to complain of the
propriety of these appropriations. This is not
the time nor the occasion to do so, if I desired.
On the contrary, I believe the light is now dawn-
ing upon us, and that the day is not far distant,
When these great works of improvement will be
a blessing to the people of the whole State. When
the day arrives, and come it will, when the re-
venues from these works shall be returned to the
people, quadruple the proportion paid by them,
and this fund consecrated by the wisdom of our
Statesmen to the purposes of education, shall
cause academies of learning to rise up lo instruct
the ignorant in every district in every county of
the State—then will my friend from Charles,
(Mr. Merrick,) now absent from his seat, whose
vigorous mind, carried forward by the sagacity
and wisdom of the statesman, boldly led him on
to such gigantic undertakings, receive the reward
which time and justice are slowly working out
for him; and then will be reared to him and
others, when adjusted, a monument not of brass
or of marble, to be defaced by time or unfriend-
ly hands, but a monument springing up from the
hearts and affections of thousands, for those who
in their day and generation incurred the public
odium that the immortal mind of the youth of the
State might be taught to know their higher and
nobler destinies. But, to return from this digres-
sion. You say that judicial labor must be diligent;
whilst at the same time, you give to one
section a system that is inadequate to discharge |
its business, and a system to another section more
adequate for the discharge of its business. You
say our judges can transact this business if they
work hard; why not make your city Judges work
hard as well as county judges? I say make them
all work. If the number given the county can
discharge its business equal in the districts to the
business of Baltimore, let the judges given Baltimore,
work. and clear the dockets of that city.
A great deal has been said in reference to the
number of days the court sits. Upon this subject,
the other day an estimable judge, who was hold-
ing his court from nine in the morning, until nine
at night, remarked to me, that his extra industry
was turned against him by the Convention; that
he found he would gain more credit with the
honorable members for industry and application,
if he would hold his court an hour or two each
day, spin out the session to an unusual length,
and then have the number of days paraded as evi-
dence of his astonishing assiduity. I say that that
Judge performed, and had done in his court more
work in one day, than some do, and have done
in six days—and of course at one-sixth the expense
to the people, and yet gentleman argue
upon the hypothesis that a day's work is a day's
work, whether you employ an hour of it, or the
whole time. The courts in Baltimore city sit, I
am informed, from nine or ten in the morning,
until two or three in the afternoon. The county
courts oftentimes ait morning and evening, until
night.
Mr. BOWIE, sometimes until after night.
Mr. MORGAN. Yes, in some districts till after
night, to hear demurer on the law dock, &c.
They do this, because the business of the plan-
ters and farmers, who have to travel sometimes
very far, will not permit them to attend a ses-
sion of unusual length, and therefore, the labor
of two or three days in a city, where jurors and
witnesses are convenient to the courts, is crowd-
ed into one by the county judges. I have. sir,
seen the venerable chief justice of the State,
now a member of this Convention, sitting in his
circuit, and crowding the labor of three or four
days into one, for the purpose of serving the in-
terests of the farming community, by expediting
business, and yet these days are to be returned
to this Convention against that highly distin-
guished and laborious functionary.
Mr. SOLLERS. I recollect a case when a judge
of our court, sat the whole night and never
closed his eyes, for the purpose of receiving the
verdict of the jury.
Mr. MORGAN. And yet in the estimate sent
to this Convention, that judge, who sat up all
night and all day in the discharge of his duties, is
returned, to have done no more work than &
judge who opened his court, had the jury called
and adjourned. The estimates of labor cannot be
relied on,
[Here Mr. M's time expired.]
Mr. TUCK. I think if the Convention will go
back to the ninth section, and establish one more
district, leaving Anne Arundel and Howard to-
gether, that it will be satisfactory to our section,
and we can then compromise. I say, as I stated |
