THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE.—1 BLAND. 619

every particular. They, each of them, bestow upon the Chancellor
a specified amount of salary; which was, in each instance, by ope-
ration of the Declaration of Rights, secured to the Chancellor
during the continuance of his commission; and, in each instance,
the Legislature reserved, or expressly exercised a discretionary
power over the appropriation, or "provision for payment." And
these distinct ideas, in this train of thinking, were obviously, as
the Acts themselves * prove, present to the minds of the
Legislature during the passage of each one of them. 661

The General Assembly of 1785, distinctly informs us, in every
way, by their messages, by the Acts which they proposed to pass,
and by the Act which they actually did pass into a law, that they
could only fix the amount of the Chancellor's salary; that when
they had so fixed it, that amount was secured by operation of the
Declaration of Rights; but that the appropriation might be made
in such manner as they thought proper; and, accordingly, they
expressly declared, that their general appropriation should remain
only until they "make other provision for payment." The evi-
dences as to the opinions of the General Assembly of 1792, are
not so various and large; but, they are no less distinctly expressed
in the Act which they passed upon the subject. Their Act recites
that the salary which they gave was secured by the Constitution;
and, then it asserts and exercises a discretionary power over the
appropriation, by setting apart a particular fund, and limiting its
continuance to five years, and no longer.

There is sufficiently unequivocal evidence, that the same distinct
ideas were present to the rninds of the General Assembly of 1798;
and, that they too acted under the influence of the same opinions.

Their Act upon this subject is entitled, "A supplement to the
Act, entitled an Act for establishing and securing the salary of the
Chancellor." Thus expressly referring to that law, in which all
those ideas and distinctions, and all that train of thinking upon
this subject, which had been so thoroughly discussed and considered
at the Session of 1785, and re-considered, and re-affirmed at the
Session of 1792, were strongly and clearly re-called, and placed
before the minds of the legislators of 1798.

And why was this done ? Why was the Act of 1798 called " a
supplement " to that of 1792 ?,Why were the previous legislative
Acts thus referred to ? Surely, it could not have been done for
the purpose of bringing before the eyes of the legislators of 1798,

an example of the prostration of any of the securities of good
government. It certainly could not have been done, for the. pur-
pose of reading them a lesson, as to the mode, and pretexts, and
the expedients under which the Constitution might be evaded or
violated. It could not have been intended to read the most solemn
recognition of constitutional principles for the purpose of oblitera-
ting or smothering them. It would be monstrous to suppose, that