80          JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Jan. 16,

tion are: "It shall be the duty of the Legislature, at its first
session after the adoption of this Constitution, to appoint two
Commissioners learned in the law to revise and codify the laws
of the State—and it shall also be the duty of the Legislature to
appoint one or more Commissioners learned in the law, whose
duty it shall be to revise, simplify and abridge the rules of
practice, pleading, forms of conveyancing and proceedings
of the courts of record of this State." In obedience to this
command of the Constitution, the Legislature did appoint two
sets of Commissioners by the following joint resolution:—
"That John V. L. McMahon, and Otho Scott be and they are
hereby appointed Commissioners to revise and codify the laws
of this State, and "William Price, Samuel Tyler and Frederick
Stone, be and they are hereby appointed Commissioners to re-
vise, simplify and abridge the rules of practice, pleadings,
forms of conveyancing and proceedings of the courts of this
State, subject to such regulation and requirements as may be
prescribed by law." Mr. McMahon declined the appointment,
and Mr. Hiram McCullough was appointed in his stead.

The Codifiers and Simplifiers, as they may for convenience
be called, accepted the respective trusts, as defined in the re-
solution appointing them. At the session of 1854, the sim-
plifiers reported to the General Assembly, a system of sim-
plified pleading, and also, a system of simplified conveyanc-
ing. The General Assembly, not having time at that ses-
sion to act upon the subject, the simplifiers reported their
work, to the General Assembly of 1856. That General
Assembly appointed an able committee of lawyers, to exam-
ine the simplified pleading and conveyancing, who, after a
rigid examination of both works section by section, in the
presence of the simplifiers, reported them both to the Gen-
eral Assembly; and in order that the State might at once
have the benefit of them, the General Assembly enacted them
into law; and both works have been in successful operation for
more than three years. It is, therefore, with surprise that
the undersigned finds, that Messrs. Otho Scott and Hiram
McCullough have materially altered both the simplified plead-
ing and conveyancing and inserted them in a volume report-
ed by themselves to your honorable body, as "The Revised
Laws of the State of Maryland."

It is too manifest to require discussion, that the Codifiers '
were not authorized by their commission, to revise and alter
either the simplified pleading, or the simplified conveyancing,
or to meddle with pleading, or conveyancing at all. Both of
these subjects had been committed to the other Commissioners.
And it is also quite obvious, that it would have been more
respectful to the Constitution which authorized, and to the