|
427] The Convention. 49
of the counties, as Harford, had instructed their delega-
tion to vote for the appointive system.34
The general public desired to see a system which, while
it gave to the judges a term sufficient to guarantee their
independence would at the same time permit their work
to be reviewed by the people, or as one member of the
convention expressed it, " an independent judge dependent
upon the people." It cannot be said that the change to the
elective system satisfied the court, or the bar. It was in-
cidental to the transformation going on in the other de-
partments. Democracy rejected the appointive system.
Every official must be chosen by popular vote.
The old appointive system found its ablest defender in
Judge Chambers, of Kent county. He made a strong ap-
peal for the independence of the judiciary as a department
of the government, and as necessary to that independence,
the tenure during good behavior. Judge Chambers at-
tempted to show that there was as much reason for making
the judges independent of the people in the United States
as there was in England for making the judges independ-
ent of the crown. In his autobiography Mr. Chambers said
that he claimed the merit of being the most ardent oppon-
ent of the " novel and unwise " system of constituting the
judiciary by a popular election of judges.35
The convention rejected the appointive system by a vote
of forty-nine to twenty-three,36 also by a vote of more than
three to one the convention rejected an amendment offered
by Mr. Phelps, of Dorchester county, for the election of
the judges by joint ballot of the two Houses of the Gen-
eral Assembly.37
The bill as originally reported by the majority, but
slightly amended, was adopted. The State was divided
into four judicial districts instead of three as the original
34 Baltimore Sun, August 4, 1850.
35 See autobiography in Scharf s Biographical Cyclopedia of
Representative Men in Md. and D. C.
36 Debates, vol. ii, p. 492. 37 Debates, vol. ii, p. 487.
30
|
