chapter IV

from 1806 to 1851
bench and bar

T was the reconstructed court, some time
after 1805, that came to be regarded as the
most important court in the state. But
this did not occur at once. For some further
time the court was regarded as one held by
district judges, somewhat as the United States
Circuit Court of Appeals of the present time has
been regarded as a court held by circuit and dis-
trict judges rather than by judges of its own. The
office held by a judge who sat on the Court of
Appeals after. 1805 was for years thought of
as that of the Chief Judge of a judicial dis-
trict. When Joseph Hopper Nicholson, in
1806, resigned his seat in Congress to become
Chief Judge of the sixth judicial district, and so
a judge of the Court of Appeals, Caesar Rodney,
of Delaware, wrote him,¹ that he, Rodney, hesi-
tated to congratulate him on becoming Chief
Judge of the sixth judicial district of Maryland.
The change to the view that there was the more
important office of Judge of the Court of Appeals
developed gradually.

More than one effort was needed in 1806 to fill
the places of these chief judges. Appointments
were first made in this order, thus fixing the order

1. Joseph Hopper Nicholson Papers, MSS. Library of Congress,
under date April 18, 1806. By the act 1805, ch. 86, salaries were
fixed specifically for the chief judges of the districts, without
mention of their constituting the Court of Appeals.