from 1806 to 1851 149

some counties had instructed their delegates to
the convention to vote to continue the appointive
system. A judiciary committee made two reports.
Thomas F. Bowie, of Prince George's County,
the chairman, submitted a majority report ad-
vocating a system of electing judges for terms of
ten years, and a grouping of the trial courts into
three districts, one of courts on the Eastern
Shore, and two of courts on the Western Shore.
A minority report, submitted by John W. Cris-
field, of Somerset County, advocated the reten-
tion of the system of appointment and life tenure
of judges, and a grouping into eight districts.
Neither plan was finally adopted in all its de-
tails, but the majority plan was adopted in the
main. It was decided that all judges should
thereafter be elected, for terms of ten years, and
that judge's should be eligible for re-election.
This was a subject of debate of a high order. A
speech of Judge Ezekiel F. Chambers advocat-
ing the retention of the appointive system was
the best of the convention, and it is still a note-
worthy one. The contest, was, of course, between
the logical supposition, on the one hand, that an
elective system would put upon the bench judges
not selected by anybody for judicial qualities, but
merely rewarded for their own self-assertion and
vote getting strength, and compelled to curry
favor for their offices, and, on the other hand,
the demand for more direct, popular government
and an opportunity to terminate at some period the
incumbency of a judge who had proved undesir-
able. The more thoughtful advocates of elec-
tion, too, expressed an anxiety for independence in