THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE.—1 BLAND. 625

ment of the sum specified by either of those Acts as the amount
of the Chancellor's salary.

But, it may be said, that this discretionary power, as to appro-
priations for the payment of judicial salaries, virtually gives to the
Legislature a control over the whole subject. To a certain degree,
this must be admitted. Legislatures are under an imperfect, not a
perfect obligation to make appropriations for the payment of such
salaries; or in other words, they are morally and religiously obliged
to obey the Constitntion. They are morally bound by their duty to
their country; and they are religiously bound by their promissory
oaths, which they take before they can be submitted to their seats.
But, the obligation, thus imposed upon them, is not a perfect one;
because, they cannot be personally coerced by any superior power,
as by a Court of justice, to comply with that obligation. Legisla-
tors, who violate the Constitution, may incur the displeasure of
the people; they may feel their moral dignity somewhat lessened
and disturbed; and they may have some very annoying and com-
punctious visitings of conscience. But the force of the imperfect
obligation, * imposed upon them, will end there. The in-
jured citizen may complain, but he can do more than com- 668
plain; he will be without redress.

The salary claimed by the present Chancellor is a debt due to
him from the State. The law of 1798 has ascertained its amount,
and the Declaration of Rights Las declared it shall be secured to
him; and further, that it shall be secured to him during the con-
tinuance of his commission. It is a debt due to him from the
State, and continually growing due to him, duriug that period of
time—and the State is as much bound to pay that debt, in one
form or other, as it can be bound to pay any debt whatever. The
State cannot now be sued; nor could its property, like that of a
tardy or a fraudulent debtor, at any time be taken and sold to pay
its debts. The Legislature have the strength, the physical power
to disregard the Constitution; to wrong an individual; to refuse to
appropriate money to pay a debt; to refuse to make provision for
the payment of a salary. But to do so is contrary to, and a viola-
tion of their moral, their religious, and their constitutional obliga-
tion.

Each legislator has, like every other citizen, a deep interest in
the preservation of the Constitution in all its perfection and integ-
rity. Institutions, that ceases to command respect, are soon treated
with contempt, and become exposed to the assaults of every rude
intruder—one violation sanctions another; and every breach, how-
ever small, weakens the political edifice; one constitutional pillar
after another may be loosened from its base until all are tumbled
into ruins. That which is now the ease of the Chancellor may
soon become the case of every Judge in the State. From one
department ruin may be visited upon another, until all the divi-
40 1 B.