THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE.—1 BLAND. 639

five pounds per annum was secured to the Chancellor during the
continuance of his commission. The faith of the State was, as he

coloring may be given to it by a party who has thus ascertained at what
point his proofs were weak or insufficient.

It is universally admitted that the consent of parties cannot give to a Court
jurisdiction of a case of which it has no cognizance; and yet it seems to have
become quite common of late to agree to the passing of a decree pro forma
merely for the purpose of appealing, and thus in effect transferring the
original jurisdiction to the Court of Appeals and sinking the Court of first
resort into a mere ministerial agent.

It is obvious then, that proper appellate judicial duty must be much less
complicated and laborious than that which is original: because after all the
circumstances of the controversy have been brought before the first Court
and the points in dispute have been there specially designated, discussed
and decided upon, the case must have been considerably reduced in its com-
pass, and the question to he determined in the ultimate tribunal must have
been so fully developed that there can be then no very heavy obstacles to
remove, nor any great difficulty to encounter in coming to a correct conclu-
sion. Considering these matters, in this point of view, it is perfectly clear,
that the Judges of the Court of last resort with less, or certainly with a no
greater requisite degree of skill, have nothing like the same amount of judi-
cial duty to perform as the Judges of the Courts of original jurisdiction.

It is evident, that a Court of ultimate resort constituted, like that of Eng-
land or of New York, of a great number of members, the majority of whom
may not be lawyers by profession, would find it utterly impracticable to deal
with, or to endure any thing like the distracting complexity of original juris-
diction, or to exercise any thing more than a simple and proper appellate
authority. But it has been found, that an appellate tribunal constituted
even of a few members, each of great legal ability, may be crushed, or
totally obstructed in its course either by allowing every suitor, at his own
pleasure, to crowd into it with his appeal, or by casting into it complicated
controversies to be there first dealt with as by a Court of original jurisdic-
tion.—(Tucker's Letter, 2 Mun. Rep. intro. 17: Debates Virg. Con. 1829, page
760.)

It must have been owing to this comparative view of the nature and
amount of the skill and labor which had been in fact, or could only with
propriety be required of or assigned to the Judges of the ultimate Court,
that the judicial salaries in Maryland have, in this respect, been always
graduated; estimating the labor of a law Judge in each of the six judicial
districts, into which the State was divided, as being for some time more than
equal, and as being for some years past not far short of being equal to
double the amount of that of a Judge of the Court of last resort. Delay,
vacillation, or obscurity in the proceedings and adjudications of a Court of
ultimate resort, to which a suitor may, without restraint, appeal, cannot fail
very considerably to retard the administration of justice: to render it ex-
tremely expensive, and oppressive to the poor; and very injuriously to
disturb its course in every inferior branch of the judicial department.
(Debates N. York Conv. 1821, p. 607.) It was with a view to prevent these
evils, that the various statutes of amendment and jeofails have been made;
that the forms and ceremonies of judicial proceedings have been adjusted,
so as not on the one hand altogether to disappoint the eagerness of a plaintiff
for an expeditious termination of his suit, while on the other, an honest de-
fendant might be secured from oppression by allowing him a reasonable