146 court of appeals of maryland

work of the judges of the Court of Appeals. Ap-
pointments of judges as well as of other officers
had been made on the basis of their political af-
filiations since the beginning of the century, and
there had been complaints of selections in a
few individual cases; but popular election would
not alter these conditions, and so far as the
manner of choosing judges was concerned, the
demand made was for new rights rather than
for remedies of any existing evils. A remedy
was sought, however, for what was considered
the excessive expense of the judicial system, and
there was a demand, also, for distinct judges for
the trial courts and the appellate court. As early
as 1827, E. H. C. Wilson, a candidate for elec-
tion to the Legislature from Somerset County,
published in the Maryland Gazette, (May 10,
1827), a letter to the People of Maryland begin-
ning, "That the Judiciary of Maryland is the
most extravagant of any State in the old thirteen
States, will be apparent from comparison." And
of the Court of Appeals he wrote,

It is not so distinct as it ought to be. All legal writers con-
cur in the opinion that our tribunals can not be maintained too
distinct. The judge who hears the issue tried below has no
business to be at the Court of Appeals. Judges are but men
after all; they are as averse to exertion as other men. All
persons who have witnessed the influence and power of associa-
tion will bear me out in the proposition that all men are in-
clined to take the opinion of a man whom we have known and
tried to be a man of erudition, based on integrity, sooner than
undergo the labor of investigation.

And the writer proposed having a single trial
judge for each district or circuit of county
courts, and a Court of Appeals of three judges