604 THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE.

*

the present year;" without any reference to any antecedent law,
clearly shows, that they held the Chancellor's salary to be reducible
at their pleasure.

But, if those acts leave any doubt upon the mind as to the
meaning and intention of the Delegates, that doubt must be com-
pletely removed by an attentive perusal of their, before recited,
message of the 26th of February, returning the general continuing
act. In that message there is no such thought expressed as, that
they could not constitutionally repeal a permanent act, fixing the
Chancellor's salary: it is not there even intimated, that they only
found themselves at liberty to reduce that salary, because it was
given by the act of 1798, which act they believed to be temporary,
nor is it to be inferred, from any thing said or done by the Dele-
gates, as recorded, that they understood, that if the act of 1798
were suffered to expire, the act of 1792 would be virtually revived;
and that it was their intention, in that way, to reduce the Chancellor's
salary. On the contrary, the Senate having complained, in their
message of the 26th of February, that "at the very moment they
were about closing the session, when many of their members were
absent who were known to have been opposed to any reduction of
the salary of that officer, they were presented with another bill
from the Delegates, in which they had thought proper to make no
provision to pay the Chancellor any salary whatever." The Dele-
gates, in opposition to the Senate, broadly and boldly, without
qualification, or restriction, in their message of the same day, say,
" we conceive that we cannot in conscience, longer continue to the
Chancellor the profuse and enormous salary which he now enjoys;
we conceive, that duty requires us to reduce it, and that there is
nothing in our declaration of rights or constitution to inhibit it."

Hence, it is most manifest, that the Delegates asserted and
maintained the absolute right to cut down the Chancellor's salary
at their pleasure, without limitation or restriction. And, rather
than be disappointed in the exercise of that asserted right, they
determined to close the session without making any provision
whatever for the payment of the Chancellor's salary. On the other
hand, the Senate planted themselves upon the constitutional ground,
that the salary given to the Chancellor by the act of 1798, ch. 86,
was, by the Declaration of Rights, secured to him during the con-
tinuance of his commission; and, during that period could not be
touched-
How it happened that so great a question as this, relative to

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