and incapacity; nor could he, on the other hand, agree with others who claimed for their respective counties a total exemption of that body of men, from any obnoxious charge. He knew many honest, honorable, and capable Justices of the Peace; and he also knew some, who were neither honest nor capable. But he did not propose treating the question upon such grounds. He had viewed the subject as an organized system, and with regard to its general practical results, so far as it had been subjected to the test of experience, which alone could establish the perfection or imperfection of any institution. He could not deny that the theory of the present Constitution was one which recommended itself much, by its plausibility and apparent simplicity; but the reasons which influenced his mind were founded upon its practical results. With regard to these practical results he had in view not only the primitive Constitution of this department, but, also, the superstructure which had been erected upon that Constitutional foundation by subsequent legislation, which enlarged their character as conservators of the peace, to that of Judicial officers, in controversies not exceeding the sum of one hundred dollars. The whole formed a system with which, he presumed, it would be inconvenient, and the people would be unwilling, to dispense. The first object of enquiry, he thought, was the evils of the system, if any, and then the remedy. The evils of the system, as they struck him, grew out of two featuresfirst, the manner of appointment; and, second, the tenure of office. In relation to the mode of appointment, the evils were two-fold-those which regarded the appointing power, and those which had respect to the people. What is the great enquiry to be made in every appointment to office? Is the applicant honest? Is he capable? By the present mode, the Governor, who resides at the seat of Government, appoints. According to the theory of the Constitution, the Governor is supposed to be acquainted with the several portions of the State, and with the principal inhabitants of these portions, and thus to be able to make good selections. This theory might do very well as it regards the higher officers of the government; but it cannot be extended in practice to Justices of the Peace. It is impossible that the Governor can act from any personal knowledge. What then, he said, is the consequence? Why, sir, he must be dependent on others for his information. On whom must he depend? Upon his political friends, who are interested in the continuance of his power, and the maintenance of their party. Hence, sir, said he, you have a little band of partizans in every county, who are the lucky ones, who have his ear, and who regulate and control every appointment, not out of regard to the interests of the public, but for the perpetuation of the power of their party. What man can ever expect that the streams of justice will be kept clear by fountains so impure as these? Then, look again, sir, to the influence which this immense patronage exercises over the Governor himself. He is eligible to re-election, and is it to be supposed that he will never exercise that power for sinister ends? No: so long as the love of power exists in the human breast, and so long as ambition fills the mind with schemes of elevation and distinction, so long will it be found that the patronage of the Governor is one of the most corrupting influences. It exhibits itself in the appointment of political partizans and favorites, as a reward for their zeal and fidelity in his cause. It exhibits itself in the vast increase of the number of officers beyond that requisite for the

public good-thus depreciating the character of the office, and increasing the inducements and means of litigation; because, every new Justice of the Peace, ambitious of the distinction of doing business, is more apt to court than to decline it. What again, sir, said he, is the influence of this patronage upon the people? It begets an attachment to the person or name of the chief Executive, rather than to any settled principles of policy, and welds together the army of office-holders, deriving their commissions from the same source-thus creating combinations of partizans and factions, having in view no interests of the country, but linked together, only for the preservation of their offices and their power. Here also, you may trace the sources of all the violence, excitement, bitterness, and acrimony, attendant upon every Governor's election, distracting the country, creating private feuds, and filling the remotest corners of the Commonwealth with turmoils and tumults. This much for the evils of the system growing out of the source of appointment.

The worst view of the subject (said Mr. A.) is that which relates to the tenure of office. The evil attendant on this is the practical impossibility of removing unworthy or unfit men from office. The term of office is during good behavior; but experience has taught us, said he, that this means for life; for, no matter what the unfitness, mental or moral, practically, removal is an impossibility. It is true, the Constitution provides several modes of removal. Removal by the Governor on conviction of misbehavior in office, or of some infamous crime, and upon address of both branches of the Legislature, and removal as the consequence of successful impeachments. This seems all well in theory, and appears to provide a plausible and simple mode of getting rid of an unworthy officer. But how, sir, is it in practice? If the incapacity arises from want of mental power or ignorance, the Justice cannot be reached, except by application to the Legislature. Every man knows that the public, in a case of this kind, feel too little interest to undertake the trouble and expense of a remedy so far removed from them, and so uncertain. Instead of acting by removal from office, the community is more apt to go at once to the fountain of power, and to ask the appointment of some other person better calculated for their purposes, thus not removing the evil itself: but if the new appointment should eventuate unfortunately, actually superadding to the evils already existing. If the incapacity be owing to a want of moral integrity, it effects, with scarcely an exception, only that part of the community, which by reason of its poverty or want of influence, is least able to seek a remedy, and thus the evil still remains without correction. The possessors of power are too cunning to tyranize over those who have the means of resistance, and of bringing them to punishment. When, sir, said he, have you heard of impositions upon the rich and the powerful? Never they are practised only upon the unresisting poor, the uninfluential. It is worse than useless to talk of the removal from office, a thing which existed only in fancy and not in fact. This, then, is the great evil of the present tenure of office, which entails upon us a body of men without the power of purification, and where every new appointment only increases the evil.

The system having been shown to be injurious in its practical results, and, indeed, generally conceded to be so by the members of this body,

to consist in the election of Justices by the citizens of the several townships wherein they exercise their offices, and the limitation of their tenu e to a fixed and certain term of years. The election by the people had al the advantages attendant on a knowledge of the character and qualificɛ. tions of the applicant for office, and none of the disadvantages accompanying the exercise of the immense and overwhelming patronage and power of the system of appointment by the Governor. It cut up by the roots the condition of vassalage and feudal superiority which existed between the officeholders of the Commonwealth and the chief Executive. The limitation of the tenure of office to a term of years, operated as an inevitable practical mode of removal of incapable and unworthy officers, acting efficiently, though silently, without expense or trouble to the community, and giving the poor and uninfluential the power of correcting their wrongs, and of avenging their injuries at their own homes, and before a tribunal willing to listen to their complaints, and to grant them relief. But while adopting this system as worthy to be proposed as an amendment to the Constitution, he was free to acknowledge that it was not so much on account of its intrinsic merits, as it was a choice of the less obnoxious, between two defective modes. There are, no doubt, great and weighty objections to the election of any judicial officer, which should prevail against that mode when a better could be provided. Whether a better mode could be devised, he would not stop to inquire-perhaps there might. The committee had, however, shown such conclusive evidence of their determination to adopt the mode of election, that he considered the question narrowed down to a choice between appointment by the Governor and election by the people. While, however, he chose the latter, he was unwilling, as had been remarked by the gentleman from Indiana, (Mr. CLARKE,) in shunning the sunken rocks of SCYLLA, to be drawn into the vortex of CHARYBDIS. If the Justice of the Peace must be made to look up to the people, over whom he exercised jurisdiction, for his continuance in office, thus opening the door to bias from the influence of the wealthy, powerful and influential, and thus abridging him of his independence, he could not consent to see his term of office contracted so much as to bring him constantly within the atmosphere of those malign influences. He never could consent to a term of three years: he did not like five, and would much prefer seven years. There was, he said, a due proportion to be preserved, which, while it freed the officer in the greatest practicable degree from the constant recurence of the influences arising out of his dependence on popular favor for continuance in office, and gave to him the advantages of experience and facility in the execution of the duties of his office, at the same time afforded the means of effecting the removal of those from office who were incapable or unworthy, and secured the public against the evils arising from a rapid change of officers, and a loss of dockets, papers, and of that information which rests in the breast of the Justice alone, necessarily attendant upon those changes. Less than seven years, he did not consider sufficient to guard against these evils. His objection to frequent elections did not arise from any want of confidence in the people to elect those most suitable to serve them, but upon the influen ces which they exercised over the officer himself, corrupting the fountains of justice, and destroying the very end of a system instituted for the bene

of election on the ground of the ability of the people to choose their own: officers, did not travel over half the ground. The ability of a people for self-government by no means requires as a consequence that they should, in every particular, exercise that ability. There were instances where it would be improper, not for any defect in their ability, but in the consequences flowing from the exercise of it. This was one of those cases. He hoped, therefore, that the committee would consent to a term of at least seven years.

Mr. DARLINGTON then modified his amendment, so as to leave it in blank.

Mr. FULLER considered this subject, he said, a very important one, and one that was intimately connected with the chief object and design of this Convention. One of the evils complained of, under the present Constitution, was the great number of Justices of the Peace, but the proposition of the gentleman from Chester would tend to increase that number. He wished to diminish it, and was, therefore, opposed to the amendment.If we left it to the respective townships to fix the number, it would be in the power of a few influential men in each township, by combining together, to increase the number to any extent they pleased. If this proposition was negatived, he would offer another which he had prepared, and which, he hoped, would meet with the acceptance of the committee.He would propose that such a number of Justices of the Peace and Aldermen, as the majority of voters of each district should determine by ballot, should be chosen for the term of five years, at such time as might be provided, after the adoption of this Constitution, and every seven years thereafter. There were many towns, the inhabitants of which wanted no Justices. and the people should be the sole judges of the number they needed, or whether they needed any at all. If they should elect more than they wanted, they could, at the end of every seven years, relieve themselves from the burden, by electing a smaller number. The idea had struck him, while the gentleman from Beaver was speaking, that, in order to get through this and the fifth article, it was necessary that those who addressed the committee, should confine their remarks to the subject immediately before us. But the gentleman from Beaver (Mr. AGNEW) had gone across the line of the question, and had addressed his remarks to his constituents upon the general subject. It was now necessary to restrict the debate, because the weather was warm, and the time for adjournment was, he believed, fixed in the minds of members of this body. Though the subject was an important one, yet the minds of the committee had been for weeks, and, indeed, for months, drawn to it, and every gentleman, he presumed, had made up his mind as to the mode of appointing the Justices, and the term for which they should serve, and if three or four days discussion upon it was not sufficient, a week would not be sufficient. He had little doubt, that before the main question could be called, the previous question must be resorted to.

Mr. AGNEW said, his remarks were strictly applicable to the question. If he was not mistaken, the amendment proposed the election of Justices of the Peace, and that, he believed, brought into view the mode of appointment, and the existing mode of appointment was by the Governor. Did

But he wanted to know who this SOLOMON was, who, in his wisdom, had undertaken to set himself up as a censor over his conduct.

Mr. FULLER called the gentleman to order. The gentleman's remarks had a personal bearing.

The CHAIR decided, that the gentleman from Beaver was not in order. Mr. STEVENS wished to know, he said, whether it was in order to appeal from this decision. It was certainly in order, for the gentleman to reply to what had been said by the gentleman from Fayette.

Mr. AGNEW continued. He was wrong, he said, in applying that epithet to the gentleman, and acknowledged that he was totally mistaken, in supposing, for a moment, that it was at all applicable to him; but, he said, he was not mistaken in believing. that the amendment of the gentleman from Chester, (Mr. DARLINGTON) proposed the election of Justices of the Peace for a term of years, and he believed that proposition contemplated a change of the present method of appointment and term of office, as well as the means of removal from office. Had he said one word which was irrelevant to these subjects? Not a word. Who, then, he said, in this committee, had the self importance and confidence of his own great wisdom, to place himself over the members as self created dictator or censor over their minds and their remarks? Who is it that attempts to measure other men's understandings by his own obtuseness or obesity of intellect? For his part, he felt that the change, attempted to be introduced by this amendment, was one of great importance-no less than making a Judicial office elective-and he considered it, not only his privilege, but his right, to express his sentiments in justification of his course, not only here, but that it might reach his constituents, who were the only judges to whom he held himself amenable.

Mr. DUNLOP would, he said, respectfully call the attention of the Committee to the amendment of the gentleman from Chester, remarking it deserved much more attention than the Committee seemed disposed to give it. He was very desirous that it should be attentively considered. The fifth section as reported by the gentleman from Susquehanna was in these words: "Justices of the Peace aud Aldermen shall be elected in the several wards, boroughs, and townships, for a term of five years". It was manifest that there was something wanting in the section. There was some defect in it. There was nothing said about a competent number, or convenient districts, in the tenure of office, or the means of removal. True, it was provided, in another section, that, with other civil officers, they might be impeached. But the proposition of the Committee was wanting in other essential particulars. The Constitution says the Governor shall appoint a competent number of Justices of the Peace, in such convenient districts, in each county, as are, or shall be directed by law, &c. Most certainly some provisions of the same kind were necessary to the proposition of the gentleman from Susquehanna. The amendment of the gentleman from Chester was greatly preferable to the report, because it adhered to the provisions and language of the Constitution. All the provisions of the Constitution on this subject, not appertaining to the mode of election, ought to be preserved. All the phraseology of the Constitution ought to be preserved, when it could be consistently with the changes that were made in its provisions, because its language was then well set