THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE.—1 BLAND. 605

No one can look over, and meditate upon the condition and cir-
cumstances of Maryland during the first nine years of the Republic,
and say that it would have been entirely sate, and proper and just,
either to the State, or the officer, to have, at once unchangeably
secured to the Chancellor and the Judges their salaries, during the
continuance of their commissions. Nor can any one, after atten-
tively perusing the before recited messages and acts of the Gen-
eral Assembly, assert, that the Legislature, previous to the year
1785, ever intended to claim, in any way, any discretionary power
whatever, to unsettle, to diminish, or to withhold, the whole or
any part of the salary of the Chancellor or of a Judge.

On the contrary, these two positions are most clearly and incon-
trovertibly established: first, that the salaries of the Chancellor
and Judges were not secured during that period, because, and only
because, of the then circumstances of the State. And secondly,
that the Legislature always expressly admitted the full force of the
constitutional obligation; but alleged the circumstances of the
State as the only reason for their not securing those salaries as
they were required. Therefore, any legislators who would now
assume all, or any of that discretionary power, then exercised
over the salaries of the Chancellor and the Judges, most produce
reasons as cogent, an excuse as self-evident, and show the present
operation of causes as powerfully overruling and imperative as
those which then existed.

The Act of 1785, ch. 27, carefully recites the provision of the
Declaration of Rights respecting judicial salaries; distinctly recog-
nizes the constitutional obligation the Legislature were under to
secure to the Chancellor and the Judges salaries, during the con-
tinuance of their commissions: and then gives to the Chancellor a
* salary of six hundred and fifty pounds per annum during
the continuance of his commission. The appropriation, or 646
provision made for the payment of this salary is to be found in the
third section of this Act, and is expressed iu_these words; "the
said salaries shall be paid quarterly, out of the supplies raised
every year, until the General Assembly shall make other provi-
sion for payment; and the said salaries, for the ensuing year shall
be paid out of the arrearages of taxes due for the year seven-
teen hundred and eighty-five.'' By the Act of 1792, ch. 76, it was

Judges without any properly settled salaries during this period of public
distress. In a letter of the 23d of February, 1782, to G. Clinton, Governor
of New York, from John Jay, he says: "Mr. Benson writes me that your
Judges are industriously serving their country, but that their country had
not, as yet, made an adequate provision for them. This is bad policy, and
poverty cannot excuse it. The Beach is at present well filled; but it should
be remembered, that although we are told that justice should be blind, yet
there are no proverbs which declare that she ought also to be hungry." (2
Jay's Life, 93.)