behaviour tenure developed its influences to the public view-the current of public opinion continued to flow deeper and stronger into the Legislature, until at length in the session of 1811-12, resolutions were reported, recommending to the people an expression of their opinion on the call of a Convention. These resolutions assert the great fundamental principles to which I have adverted, and specify this good behaviour tenure as one of the violations of these principles which had been productive of much evil, and the occasion of great complaint. There seems to have prevailed in the Legislature a strong doubt whether they had power to recommend the calling of a Convention, or to meddle at all with measures leading to a reform of the Constitution, and it is quite probable that the failure of the resolution to which I have referred, is to be ascribed mainly to this doubt. The vote stood, 43 yeas for, to 45 nays against it-so that it was lost by a majority of two votes only. This was a strong expression of public opinion against some of the features of this Constitution, and particularly against these life offices, and it was given, not by an ignorant party, as the watchword passes along the rank and file of an excited soldiery, but by sober, staid and reflecting men, such as the two venerable republicans who sit just in front of me, (Messrs. McCall and Dickerson,) both of whom were in that Legislature and both voted for a call of a Convention. You, sir, (Mr. M'Sherry,) voted the other way, doubtless from motives equally pure and patriotic. Failing of their object in 1812, the people very soon renewed their suit, as the journals and the petitions shew, and in 1825, the pressure of public opinion had become so great that the Legislature yielded to its force, and passed an act for calling a Convention to amend the Constitution. The error of this law was, that it did not provide for submitting the amended Constitution to a vote of the people, and they had learned from the history of the Convention of 1790, that it was not wise to commit their fundamental law to the revision of any body of men, without retaining the power to affirm or reverse their proceedings. Accordingly, when the vote was taken for calling a Convention under that law, there was a majority against it. Still the sturdy republican yeomanry of Pennsylvania did not despair of reform-they continued to pour in upon the Legislature their complaints against your good behaviour tenure, and other abuses of our present Constitution, by petition, public meetings, and every mode in which popular opinion could display itself, till the law was passed for calling the Convention which we now compose a main object of which measure was, as I firmly believe, to abolish these life offices which have become odious to the people and to which they never will be reconciled. Examine these petitions, read the proceedings of these meetings and you will see the strong, steady and unchanging condemnation of this tenure of office by large masses, whole communities of our fellow citizens. Is it enough to sneer at such authority, as the testimony of grog shop politicians, or of an ignorant and excited mob, led on by designing and unprincipled demagogues? No, sir, it is the voice of the people, which, if you deny or despise it too long, will assume a louder and more fearful tone, against which gentlemen cannot, however, they may desire to, shut their ears. But, Mr. Chairman, there is another fact in this history to be mentioned. Simon Snyder came in as a reform Governor, and, from him down to the present day, there has not been a Governor elected to fill your MONDAY AFTERNOON, October 30. FIFTH ARTICLE. The Convention again resolved itself into a committee of the whole, Mr. M'SHERRY in the chair, on the report of the committee to whom was referred the fifth article of the Constitution. The question being on the motion of Mr. WooDWARD, to amend the report by striking out all after the words "section second," and inserting in lieu thereof, the report of the minority of the committee. Mr. WOODWARD resumed his remarks. The gentleman from the city relies on the example of the Federal Constitution; and this morning, I endeavored to shew that there was such a dissimilarity in the duties and objects of the two establishments, that no argument, in favor of the good behaviour tenure here, could be justly drawn from the Constitution of the United States; but, as the gentleman quotes great names, in support of the good behaviour tenure, I will offer him the authority of a man not inferior to the greatest name he has mentioned. I mean Thomas Jefferson. He was out of the country at the adoption of the Constitution of 1787, but after the amendments to it were adopted, he seems to have given it his approbation and cordial support. Long after, however, when he had retired from the excitements of political life, and when experience, observation and reflection had enabled him to form a more correct judg ment on our political experiment, he held the following language of the federal judiciary: "Let the future appointments of Judges be for four or six years, and renewable by the President and Senate. This will bring their conduct, at regular periods, under revision and probation, and may keep them in equipoise between the general and special governments. We have erred in this point by copying England, where certainly it is a good thing to have the judges independent of the King. But we have omitted to copy their caution also, which makes a judge removable on the address of both houses. That there should be public functionaries, independent of the nation, whatever may be their demerit, is a solecism in a republic, of the first order of absurdity and inconsistency.' Such were the mature and calm opinions of this great man on the establishment of the good beha viour tenure even in the national judiciary; and surely there is less apology for it in our State Constitution. Mr. Chairman, I am about to appeal to higher authority still-to the people of Pennsylvania. The gentleman from the city asserted, that the good behaviour principle had been unquestioned from the year 1790, and that he had never heard it questioned before he came here. If the gentleman had taken the trouble of consulting the record, he would have found that, in a few years after the establishment of this tenure in Pennsylvania, the people began to address the Legislature by petition and memorial for some mode of relief. Such petitions came in from various behaviour tenure developed its influences to the public view-the current of public opinion continued to flow deeper and stronger into the Legisla ture, until at length in the session of 1811-12, resolutions were reported, recommending to the people an expression of their opinion on the call of a Convention. These resolutions assert the great fundamental principles to which I have adverted, and specify this good behaviour tenure as one of the violations of these principles which had been productive of much evil, and the occasion of great complaint. There seems to have prevailed in the Legislature a strong doubt whether they had power to recommend the calling of a Convention, or to meddle at all with measures leading to a reform of the Constitution, and it is quite probable that the failure of the resolution to which I have referred, is to be ascribed mainly to this doubt. The vote stood, 43 yeas for, to 45 nays against it-so that it was lost by a majority of two votes only. This was a strong expression of public opinion against some of the features of this Constitution, and particularly against these life offices, and it was given, not by an ignorant party, as the watchword passes along the rank and file of an excited soldiery, but by sober, staid and reflecting men, such as the two venerable republicans who sit just in front of me, (Messrs. McCall and Dickerson,) both of whom were in that Legislature and both voted for a call of a Convention. You, sir, (Mr. M'Sherry,) voted the other way, doubtless from motives equally pure and patriotic. Failing of their object in 1812, the people very soon renewed their suit, as the journals and the petitions shew, and in 1825, the pressure of public opinion had become so great that the Legislature yielded to its force, and passed an act for calling a Convention to amend the Constitution. The error of this law was, that it did not provide for submitting the amended Constitution to a vote of the people, and they had learned from the history of the Convention of 1790, that it was not wise to commit their fundamental law to the revision of any body of men, without retaining the power to affirm or reverse their proceedings. Accordingly, when the vote was taken for calling a Convention under that law, there was a majority against it. Still the sturdy republican yeomanry of Pennsylvania did not despair of reform-they continued to pour in upon the Legislature their complaints against your good behaviour tenure, and other abuses of our present Constitution, by petition, public meetings, and every mode in which popular opinion could display itself, till the law was passed for calling the Convention which we now compose a main object of which measure was, as I firmly believe, to abolish these life offices which have become odious to the people and to which they never will be reconciled. Examine these petitions, read the proceedings of these meetings and you will see the strong, steady and unchanging condemnation of this tenure of office by large masses, whole communities of our fellow citizens. Is it enough to sneer at such authority, as the testimony of grog shop politicians, or of an ignorant and excited mob, led on by designing and unprincipled demagogues? No, sir, it is the voice of the people, which, if you deny or despise it too long, will assume a louder and more fearful tone, against which gentlemen cannot, however, they may desire to, shut their ears. But, Mr. Chairman, there is another fact in this history to be mentioned. Simon Snyder came in as a reform Governor, and, from him down to the present day, there has not been a Governor elected to fill your reform; and the watchword and the cry of the rank and file of every party has been, "reform "-" reform "-" abolition of life offices". "reduction of Executive patronage," and the "extension of suffrage." I appeal to the oldest man here, if every candidate for the Chief Magistracy, in all this time, has not been presented to the people as favorable to liberal constitutional reform, and if one of them has dared, before the election, to avow himself favorable to this aristocratic feature of our constitution. Mr. Chairman, if I have apprehended the popular feeling of Pennsylvania correctly, in reference to this question, how is it that gentlemen, familiar with all our history, and observant of whatever has passed or is passing in the State, can assert that they never heard of this tenure being questioned and opposed. If they will open their eyes to the record, and cultivate some respect for the popular opinion, they will see clear traces of its dissatisfaction with this tenure; but, whatever others may think of it, I value this public opinion, founded as it is on the actual experience of an intelligent people, beyond all the musty records and great names which have been, or are to be, pleaded, in behalf of the good behaviour tenure. It is the sound sense of a republican people, remonstrating against that "solecism in a republic, of the first order of absurdity and inconsistency "-irresponsible functionaries. The people feel that the judiciary belongs as truly to them, and is as essential to their welfare as the other departments of their government; and that they may feel as secure under its influence, they wish to see it made, by some means and in some degree, responsible to them. It is not their interest or desire to have dependent and time-serving judges-they want an independent, faithful and responsible judiciary. I proceed now, Mr. Chairman, to another objection to this tenure. It begets in the mind of the judge an idea of property in the office he holds. It has already been made a question in Pennsylvania, whether a commission granted for good behaviour could be superceded, vacated or annulled, without a forfeiture of the condition on which it is held. A commission is granted to a judge during good behaviour, that is just as long as by hook or by crook he can save himself from the operation of the removal and impeaching power. He gives up his business to accept it, and he brings into the office learning which it cost him years to attain. Here is a consideration, and the commission is a contract, it has been said; and a judge is very apt to persuade himself of this doctrine, for when "Self the wav'ring balance shakes, He feels that he has purchased the office with a price, and that he has a property, an estate in it-that it is his, and that a Convention of the people, and no power in the State, can of right take it from him. These permanent offices are, in their nature, calculated to foster and cherish this wrong feeling, and to induce a forgetfulness that the office is a sacred trust, and the incumbent a servant and trustee only of the people. If this feeling be not checked, the judges will by and by decide themselvs to be the owners of the office, and then we may expect it to acquire another quality of property-to become inheritable; and we shall find it The germ of a judicial aristocracy is planted in your Constitution; and if we do not return to right principles, God only knows how soon it may spring up, and overshadow this goodly land. Sir, the people are sagacious enough to see the danger-they know and feel that this tenure is tending to an aristocracy-they feel that it ought not to belong to an office established for their security and conveniencefor the protection of their property-for the redress of their wrongs-for the vindication of their rights. Again, sir, I have another objection to this tenure. Power long continued in the hands of any man, however pure and upright when he first succeeds to it, makes him despotic, tyrannical, overbearing and disgusting to the republican sense of the people. I agree with the gentleman, that our judges have no political power, but the power, whatever you call it, which they exercise over the property, reputation and rights of our citizens is immense, when it is confined within the strictest rules of law; but when it takes latitude, for the purpose of attaining a result on which a haughty and imperious judge has set his heart, it becomes frightful. It may be the weakest arm of the government politically, but no department is felt so sensibly and constantly by the people as the judiciary. While I am on this subject, Mr. Chairman, allow me to gratify the Convention with a beautiful and eloquent sketch of the power of judges, which I find in an address delivered before the Law Academy of Philadelphia, at the opening of the session of 1826-7, by Joseph Hopkinson, L. L. D., Vice Provost of the academy. "A mind accustomed to acknowledge no power but physical force, no "obedience but personal fear, must view with astonishment a feeble "individual, sitting with no parade of strength; surrounded by no visible "agents of power; issuing his decrees with oracular authority, while the "great and the rich, the first and the meanest, await alike to perform his "will. Still more wonderful is it to behold the co-ordinate officers of the "same government, yielding their pretensions to his higher influence. "The Executive, the usual depository and instrument of power; the "Legislature, the very representative of the people, give a respectful "acquiescence to the judgments of the tribunals of the law, pronounced "by the minister and expounder of the law. It is enough for him to "say, It is the opinion of the court,' and the remotest corner of our "republic feels and obeys the mandate. What a sublime spectacle ! "This is indeed the empire of the law; and safe and happy are those "who dwell within it-may it be perpetual." 6 Such, sir, (continued Mr. W.) is the majesty and the power with which the law invests its ministers, and you give him an indefeasible title to it for life. If he be an ambitious and proud man, what kind of a public servant will he be, after wielding this power for fifteen or twenty years? Can the poor, the destitute and the friendless, approach him with confidence? Will his ear be open to their cause? Will his manners and bearing conform to the republican simplicity and habits of our people? These are practical questions; let every man's experience and observation answer them. Compare your life office holders with the other officers of the government. Look at the charges that have been preferred and proved against these judges, whom unsuccessful attempts |