THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE. 637

During the whole of this distressing period, and under every
aspect and change of circumstances, the legislators of the Republic
appear to have been actuated by a strong sense of justice, and a
firm determination to compensate every one for his services to the
full extent of their worth, and of the ability of the State to pay.
But while they were thus making every possible effort to render to
every individual his due, and to comply with the provisions of
that constitution which they had just adopted, and had declared
should be sacred; they felt the necessity of having it distinctly *
understood, that it was not their intention, directly, or indirectly,
to plight the faith of the State for the payment of any salary which
might burthen and embarrass its finances after the return of peace.
Accordingly, when they fixed the salaries of all officers upon the
high nominal scale of the year 1780; and the chancellor's salary,
as we have seen, was fixed at twelve thousand five hundred pounds ;
the General Assembly resolved : " That whatever salaries may be
given to the officers of the civil list, in continental currency, shall
be subject to the control of the General Assembly, and shall stand no
longer than till the further order of the said General Assembly."(r)

It may then be safely assumed, as a fact incontrovertibly estab-
lished, by the acts of the government, and the history of the times,
that, whatever may have been the intentions or the wishes of the
General Assembly, during the first nine years of the Republic, it
was utterly impracticable, within that time, to comply with that
provision of the Declaration of Rights, which requires the legisla-
ture to secure to the chancellor a salary during the continuance of
his commission. But, however strongly and clearly this may be
deduced from the facts and circumstances of those times; yet, if it
rested on deduction only, and there were, in all that period, no
express declarations of the wishes, understanding, and intention of
the legislature to be met with, there might, perhaps, be found,
somewhere, room to urge a cavil, or to press an inference, that the
Declaration of Rights had been construed to allow the legislature a
discretionary power over judicial salaries; that it allowed them to
temporize, and to diminish at pleasure, the salaries of the chan-
cellor and judges. But the public acts, the repeated solemn mes-
sages, and the unequivocal language of the two branches of the
General Assembly, have absolutely and positively precluded every
doubt and cavil upon the subject.

(r) Votes & Pro. H. Del. 24th December, 1779.

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