76                The Maryland Constitution of 1851.             [454

bers of the General Assembly were enabled to escape from
the responsibilty of injurious legislation.

The constitution of 1776 permitted the Senate to give
only their assent or dissent to all money bills. This re-
striction was removed by the constitution of 1851.

In Maryland until 1841 divorces were granted by the
legislature, and no court had power to grant them. By
an Act of 1841, ch. 262, for the first time, jurisdiction over
applications for divorce was conferred upon equity courts.
But it was held that this did not divest the legislature of
its power to grant divorces.²⁷ The constitution of 1851
gave the equity courts the exclusive power to grant di-
vorces. This change was made on the ground that it
consumed too much of the legislature's time, and because
it is properly a judicial act. The legislature in 1849, &
was said, granted twenty-one divorces, and that gener-
ally upon ex-parte testimony.²⁸

The constitution of 1851 prohibited the legislature from
contracting debts, unless authorized by a law providing
for the collection of an annual tax sufficient to pay the in-
terest of the debt contracted, and to discharge the debt
within fifteen years. The amount of debt contracted
should never exceed one hundred thousand dollars. The
credit of the State was not to be given in aid of any indi-
vidual, association, or corporation. The General Assembly
was prohibited from involving the State in the construc-
tion of works of internal improvement, or making appro-
priations to works of like character.²⁹

The office of attorney-general was abolished. Judge
Chambers, of Kent county, one of the delegates to the
convention of 1850, fourteen years later said that the
reason for the abolition of this office was purely from per-
sonal considerations, having relation to an individual,

²⁷ See Wright's Case, 2 Md. 429.

²⁸ Debates, vol. i, p. 247.

²⁰ Const. 1851, art. iii, sec. 22.