118 court of appeals of maryland

it was still true that most judges in the State were
engaged in farming and were only partly depend-
ent for their incomes upon the salaries of their
offices. It will be observed that Judge Nicholson
in the letter to President Jefferson just cited said
the salary was totally inadequate to the service
"when it. is considered in connection with the-
place to which my residence is confined", that is,
Baltimore. And Judge Ezekiel F. Chambers, a
member of the court from 1834 to 1851, in speak-
ing before the constitutional convention of 1851
of the burdens which the work at Annapolis
brought upon the judges, included "the loss at
home necessarily consequent on the neglect of
private concerns and their mismanagement by
agents." The amount of the official salary could
not therefore be taken as the measure of the cal-
ibre of the men.

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Chief Judge Buchanan, who sat on the court
for thirty-eight years, and following Judge Chase
was for twenty years the Chief, was himself a
man who commanded respect, and even venera-
tion for the court. To this his contemporaries
bear witness with some little feeling. Judge
John Thomson Mason, the second of that name,
who sat on the court later, from 1851 to 1857,
described him as "the model of grace and dignity,
as well as of erudition and justice, before whom
it is an honor to have practiced." 27 And John
H. B. Latrobe, many years later,²⁸ referred to
"that most estimable gentleman and able lawyer,
Chief Justice John Buchanan." Judge Mason

27. Mason, Life of McMahon, 94.

28. John E. Semmes, John H. B. Latrobe and his Times, 213.