But my principal objection to this is, first, locating the court permanently in one particular place by the Constitution; but, second, if that is done it ought to be a place which will accommodate the greatest number of suitors. My friend from the western part of the State is obliged to travel a great distance to get to Harrisburg. I know he would rather come to Philadelphia than stop at Harrisburg, and I think many of us would rather go to Pittsburg than to Harrisburg. Mr. CORBETT. I should like to ask the gentleman a question, with his permission.

Mr. GoWEN. Certainly.

Mr. CORBETT. I ask if he does not think that if the members of the bar had to go to Harrisburg to argue their causes, it would decrease the list considerably? [Laughter.]

Mr. GoWEN. I do not know. It would depend, I suppose, on the pockets of the suitors. I do not think the list ought to be decreased for any such reason as that. Mr. WRIGHT. I am in favor of the proposition. I think there is something eminently proper in having the Legislature, the executive and the judicial departments all at the same place. If Philadelphia were the seat of government, I should be glad to come here. While Harrisburg remains the seat of government, I am willing to go there; but I think these three departments should all be in the same location.

ness.

There is something very pertinent in the inquiry put by the gentleman across the way in regard to the amount of busiThere is a vast list in this city undisposed of; probably many causes are thrown into the Supreme Court to obtain delay, a sort of stay of execution. I venture to say that at least one-third of the causes from the city of Philadelphia would never find their way into the Supreme Court if they had to go to Harrisburg. I judge of that from my own experience. We have to go about one hundred and fifty miles, and it certainly weighs very much with a party who is disposed to appeal when he comes to count the necessary resulting expenses.

I am entirely in favor of the general practicability of having the three departments in the same location, and shall vote very cheerfully, therefore, that the sessions of this court in banc shall be held at the seat of government.

Mr. SHARPE. Mr. Chairman: As we are now engaged in fixing the judicial

policy of the State, my purpose in offering this amendment was to settle the policy that our Supreme Court should no longer be a peripatetic court, but that it should be fixed at one place.

Now, sir, the place which shall be established is a matter of detail which I think should be regulated by the Legislature entirely; but that it should be a fixed court at some one place is, I think, a principle of policy which ought to be settled in the organic law. Personally I am indifferent as to the location of the court. I would as soon come to Philadelphia as any other place; but I desire to have the court fixed so that when we want our judicial business attended to, we shall know exactly where to go, and exactly where we can find the judges.

For that reason, leaving the question as to the place entirely an open one, I desire simply to have the policy itself established that it shall be a fixed court at some one place, to be regulated by the Legislature hereafter.

Mr. D. W. PATTERSON. Mr. Chairman: Just one reason I should like to give why there should be but one place fixed for the Supreme Court; and I do not see how this committee can get over supporting that proposition if they have really spoken their sentiments in reference to the necessity and desire of relieving the Supreme Court of overwork.

I have been informed by gentlemen of the Philadelphia bar-I will not say members of this House—and also by members of the bar of the city of Pittsburg, that, owing to the fact of the Supreme Court being very near them, they take up almost anything and everything to that court; and one or two of those gentlemen did admit to me that if the Supreme Court was not quite so convenient there would not be near so many cases taken up. I think that is evident; it must be manifest; and I have the confessions of members of both those bars to the truth of what I have said.

Now, if we really want to relieve the Supreme Court, it would go very far towards it if you fixed the permanent sittings of the court at Harrisburg, the present Capital of the State.

Mr. BEEBE. Mr. Chairman: I do not wish to take up the time of the Convention, but I cannot forbear to say one word. I have sat here and listened, hoping that all had been said that ought to be said in regard to this matter; but it seems to me that the personal convenience of the

judges of the Supreme Court and the convenience of the bar have been the paramount interests here and the governing principles on the part of every man who has spoken.

Now, I ask if that is what the Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania contemplates? While it is convenient for men in the city of Philadelphia to take every trivial case into the Supreme Court and make it just as common as the circuit court, and just as cheap, I ask them to consider those who have just the same rights, that the courts are instituted and organized to protect, living hundreds of miles away. Consider the expense to them of coming here; and then will gentlemen say that thereby the principle of the Constitution is carried out? Does that secure that which we are sent here to do? Does it promote the welfare of the people and secure their rights to justice, speedy, convenient and cheap? That has been lost sight of in the consideration of this question in fixing the court at one place five hundred or six hundred miles from suitors, for the simple reason that there is plenty to eat and to drink and good living, &c., and a nice time for the bar to come here and share it with them at the expense of their clients. I ask if this is not a practical sale as well as a denial of justice, for the convenience of the judges and the financial interests of the bar. I apprehend that this Convention should get back to the principle which underlies this whole question, take it into consideration, and see that justice is and can be reached by the people of the remote parts of the State as well as those here.

Mr. BUCKALEW. I wish to ask one question of the gentleman proposing this amendment. I should like to know whether he intends to deprive the court of the power, which it now has, to order special sessions of the courts at particular points? That has been very often done, with the consent of counsel engaged on both sides of great causes-railroad cases and others. We have known the court to sit at Wilkesbarre, and various other points, between terms, especially in hot weather, when it would be inconvenient to sit at the regular place.

I should like to inquire, also, what the effect is to be in selecting members of the court? If the sessions of the court in banc are to be held exclusively at Harrisburg, and to be held there during the greater part of the year, although the amendment does not require it, yet indirectly it will

require that the judges shall reside there. I am afraid that putting these restrictions into the Constitution will tend to prevent a great many very competent and able men from taking nominations for the Supreme Court. There are a great many very able men in this State who would not consent to remove their families and reside at Harrisburg, or, in fact, remain there during the greater part of the year. Mr. RUSSELL. That is stricken out. Mr. BUCKALEW. I know; but if you direct the court always to sit there, and they cannot sit anywhere else-if they cannot even order a special hearing at another part of the State, at the request of all parties concerned in the litigationyou will make a seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court much less desirable than it is at present; you will deter competent men from taking nominations.

Besides, if there is any propriety, at any time, in fixing a single place, it can be done by legislation. It is not necessary to do it here. If that court thinks it proper that they should sit at one place, the Legislature may at any time pass a law for the purpose; and if a statute on this subject is found to be inconvenient, it can be changed, whereas the Constitution cannot be.

For these reasons I shall vote against this amendment.

Mr. ELLIS. I simply wish to add a single thought to that already thrown out on this question, that is, in opposition to fixing the permanent sessions of the Supreme Court at Harrisburg. We have all entertained the opinion that the judges of the Supreme Court have been, and will be, men of eminent ability and purity of character; but, after all, the judges of the Supreme Court are human, and if they are not entirely above the possibility of being reached, by placing their sessions permanently at Harrisburg, in close contact with "the third house" of the government, [laughter,] we may reach a period in our history when, although perhaps it may not be absolutely true that the Supreme Court may be reached or influenced, nevertheless there will be such juxtaposition between certain bills passed in the Legislature and certain other movements of "the third house," as sometimes to bring into disrepute the decisions of the Supreme Court.

Again, as the Supreme Court review the acts of the Legislature, and in some cases it becomes their duty to pronouncy them unconstitutional, and as they are,

Mr. DALLAS. Giving notice that when the subject of the common pleas judges is more distinctly under consideration, I shall move the same amendment as to them, I am willing now to accept the modification of the gentleman from Columbia.

into it carefully, and to hear it discussed. But, sir, I rose to suggest to my friend from Philadelphia that he withdraw this amendment, and allow the whole subject-. matter to come up at the proper time. The question of whether the vote shall be a cumulative vote or a limited one is ap

Mr. ARMSTRONG. It occurs to me that it is not worth while to make two bites of a cherry. It means the same thing and it ought all to be embodied in one section, and so I understood this morning when the matter was incidentally referred to. There is a great question which this Convention must meet at some point, and I hope it will be fairly met and properly considered; and that is the question of cumulative voting, or free voting, or by whatever other name it may be called; but I do not want to see it come into the Constitution by piecemeal and a little at a time. Let us meet that question in its fullness when it arrives; but at the present time it would seem to me not to be wise to adopt a section providing for a certain mode of electing the judges of the Supreme Court, and then after a little while adopt another section providing the same means for electing judges of the courts of common pleas. When we reach an appropriate place in the Constitution, then let us vote upon such a section as will embrace the entire subject-matter and relate to both classes of courts.

Mr. DALLAS. If the gentleman will allow me a question, is not this the point at which he himself suggested it should come?

Mr. ARMSTRONG. No, sir; I suggested to the gentleman that it would be appropriate in connection with these lines; but I said to him in the same connection that I proposed to insert these lines as a new section among the general provisions, and there the gentleman's amendment would be appropriate.

Mr. BIGLER. I desire to get the floor to express about the views which have fallen from the lips of the gentleman from Lycoming; and I desire, in addition, to say that this form of electing judges ought to be incorporated, briefly, in some particular point in the Constitution, covering all the cases; and I anticipate a discussion, an earnest inquiry as to which of those two systems will prove to be the best, the limited vote or that proposed by my friend from Columbia. To me it is a very grave question, and I desire to look

preme judges, but of the judges of the courts of common pleas also, in case it should be determined to provide for those elections in a form that will make this system applicable.

Mr. DALLAS. Whether or not, after hearing the subject fully discussed, I myself would be willing to have the principle of the free vote extended to the election of all officers of the State, I have not determined; but I am very clear that all judges in the State ought to be elected by some method which will give to minorities a representative upon the bench. Judges honestly-not dishonestly, but honestly-differ in opinion upon constitutional questions and upon every question of a political character, as a result of their association and education; and it is unfair to all that class of questions that a large portion of the community, it may be, but still a minority, should never have the voice of their views expressed from the bench of the Supreme Court or of the other courts of the State.

It was to meet this consideration that I offered this amendment at this place. My difficulty has arisen from an honest effort on my part to try to make the place of presenting this amendment and the form of its presentation suit all those who I supposed were its friends. My difficulty is that they do not agree. If I could find a general statement of opinion upon the subject of where this amendment should come in, and whether it should be made to apply to all the judges at once, or in the first instance only to the Supreme Court and subsequently be extended to the common pleas courts, I should certainly have no personal desire to resist a general wish on the subject. My own thought was, that being an entirely independent section, the question of the election of judges having been passed upon by an immediately preceding section, and the third section following being about to be stricken out, a very proper place to insert the section that I propose was in lieu of that section about to be stricken out. I also thought that there should not be two bites at a cherry, but that we should here establish the entire principle, not only as to the supreme

judges, but as to the common pleas judges. Without hesitation, yielding to the suggestion of the gentleman from Columbia, I accepted his modification, and made it applicable here only to judges of the Supreme Court; but as I understood from the gentleman from Columbia, it was satisfactory to him that the question should be raised here.

The objection then comes from the gentleman from Lycoming, (Mr. Armstrong,) that while he wanted it to come in connection with this section, he proposes now to transfer this section to some later part of the article; where, I do not exactly know; and the gentleman from Clearfield (Mr. Bigler) does not think this is the place to insert it. I can only say that I am perfectly willing to have the amendment brought up in any place in the article where the committee think proper, or that is desirable to all gentlemen here; but until there is some more general expression of opinion that this is not the proper place for it, I must hold to my own opinion, which is, that it should be considered right at this point.

Mr. BUCKALEW. It is not proper that general debate upon the political applica tion of reformed voting should take place here. These judicial elections are not like the ordinary political elections of the country for members of the Legislature and for other officers, and therefore a proposed application of reformed voting to the choice of judges of the Supreme Court does not involve the general debate. It may be applied here without going into a great many considerations which apply to ordinary political elections. I spoke this morning of the general considerations which should apply to it.

As to the particular form of the proposition, whether it should be that now proposed by the member from Philadelphia or one similar to that adopted in the State of New York, to which the member from Clearfield has referred, I have to say that I am somewhat indifferent as to the form; and in the case of the election of two judges of the Supreme Court, there would be but little difference; the result would be in almost every case precisely the same. I am indifferent as to details.

What I desire is, that the Supreme Court in particular (and we are now confined to that subject) shall be the great court of the people of the State. I have been all the time strongly in favor of the election of that court, of having it a popular court. If I conceded the appointment

of any judges, it would be the local judges, who are subject to local disturb. ing influences in their nominations and elections. But I would have this court a popular court.

I do not know what the Convention may do hereafter with regard to the constitution of the courts of common pleas: Whether they will have the judges of those courts elected singly in districts, as most of them are now, or elected at successive intervals, so that each shall be chosen singly, in either of which cases reformed voting could not be applied; or on the other hand, will adopt the system of plural elections of judges of the common pleas, by which the application of some reform of this kind could be introduced-neither I nor any one else can now foresee. Besides, when we come to debate this question in connection with the constitution of the courts of common pleas, we will encounter a great many local feelings and interests which do not obtain with regard to the Supreme Court. For instance, if you propose some change in the mode of choosing judges in Philadelphia, you may encounter the interests of the judges now on the bench. So in regard to the county of Allegheny, and in regard to other districts.

I am content, in fact anxious, that we shall have some change in the manner of choosing the judges of the courts of common pleas; but I submit that it will be best and wisest for us to confine ourselves now to the question of choosing judges of the Supreme Court, in regard to which I magine there will be almost a common opinion throughout the State that, as we are making these great changes, increasing the number of judges in that court, making their terms very long, and rendering them ineligible for re-election, we should secure this guarantee that that court shall not become a political court. This would attract, in my judgment, the attention and assent of the people throughout the State; whereas there may be differences of opinion with regard to the subordinate courts.

Again, as to the point to which the chairman (Mr. Armstrong) spoke; naturally he is desirous of maintaining, as far as possible, the framework of his report. From his official relation to it, it is natural to expect that; but I suggest to him, as he is not indisposed to this reform, that we now agree to the amendment as the member from Philadelphia has offered it, applying it only to the Supreme Court.