174 court of appeals of maryland

James McSherry, Jr. The meeting resulted in a
petition for relief by the General Assembly then
sitting, but no legislative action followed. The
election of 1866 brought an overturn in the legal
control of the state, however, the Democratic Con-
servatives having carried it. Oliver Miller was
Speaker of the House which assembled in Jan-
uary 1867. The Assembly directed that a popular
vote be taken on the calling of another constitu-
tional convention to begin May 8, and in April the
proposal for the convention was carried. The
convention lasted from May 8 to August 17.

The debates of this convention were never pub-
lished officially, but Mr. Philip B. Perlman has
collected all the reports printed in newspapers
and elsewhere, and from his publication something
of the discussion on the judiciary article is known.⁹
The special committee on the framing of the ar-
ticle was composed of twenty-five lawyers of
standing, and it opened the debate on the courts
by a majority report of a plan for a wide depar-
ture from the existing system. It was proposed
that the system of five judges for the Court of Ap-
peals chosen from the five districts arranged for
the purpose, and of twelve trial judges from
twelve county trial circuits, and additional judges
for the thirteenth, or Baltimore City circuit, be
now abandoned; and that the state return to the
essential features of the system which had existed
from 1806 to 1851, arranging seven circuits of
counties and an eighth of Baltimore City, provid-
ing three judges for each county circuit and five

9. Philip B. Perlman, Debates of Maryland Constitutional Conven-
tion of 1867, Baltimore, 1923.