strumentality it was effected. We are only susprised that others, whose motives were above suspicion, should have been found to support it, without perceiving its folly and the inconveniences it would involve. Instead of studying up the various questions submitted by the committees quietly from their reports, every man was, in consequence of this restriction, obliged either to investigate each case at length himself, or to listen to a lengthy, awkward, and necessarily imperfect exposition of it in the debates, or vote without understanding the question at all. A sad waste of the time of the Convention, was the inevitable consequence, as should have been anticipated from a procedure so entirely at war with all usage, with common sense, and with the common and sacred purpose of every faithful reformer in the Convention.

We have pleasure in turning from these, the most painful incidents in the history of this Convention, to consider the fruits of its labors. Of them we entertain the most exalted estimate, and most cordially unite with Mr. Hoffman, a delegate from Herkimer, in his declaration, made as the labors of himself and associates were drawing to a close, on the last day but one of the session, "that this Constitution contains more excellent matter got together by this Convention than any Constitution on the whole earth."

To justify this estimate, we propose briefly to enumerate some of the effects it is designed, and, we think, destined to accomplish.

I. It will secure a more free and fair representation of the people in the making, and in the administration of the laws.

1. By reducing and decentralizing political patronage. It withdraws from the Executive and Senate the appointment of all judicial and nearly all ad

ministrative officers, and provides for their election by the people. All the judges, save justices of the peace, are made elective, as are also, the Secretary of State, Comptroller, Treasurer, Attorney General, State Engineer and Surveyor, Canal Commissioners and Inspectors of State Prisons. The horde of leeching inspectorships of commodities, is annihilated by the following clause which should immortalize this Convention, if all its other labors had been fruitless:

"§ 8. All offices for the weighing, gauging, measuring, culling or inspecting any merchandize, produce, manufacture or commodity whatever, are hereby abolished, and no such office shall hereafter be created by law; but nothing in this section contained, shall abrogate any office created for the purpose of protecting the public health, or the interests of the State in its property, revenue, tolls, or purchases, or of supplying the people with correct standards of weights and measures, or shall prevent the creation of any office for such purposes hereafter."

Indirectly, also, a multitude of subordinate offices, civil and military, are annihilated, or their choice made unavailable for purposes of party organization.*

We are of the opinion that the elective principle has been unwisely extended to some of those officers whose duties are purely administrative, and too unimportant to deserve or require the whole voting community to lay aside their private affairs to investigate the fitness of candidates to discharge those duties. The inconvenience to accrue from this source, however, will be comparatively trifling and easily remedied. The evils to be cured are numerous and oppressive.

2. By dividing the State in single Senate and Assembly Districts, the delegate is brought nearer, and is made more directly responsible to his con

stituency, thus realizing more adequately a perfect theory of political representation.

We object, decidedly, to the abbreviation of the Senatorial term from four to two years, which the Convention has proposed. We have on a previous occasion stated our preference for longer legislative terms, and we are still unable to realize the wisdom

of the course pursued by this Convention, or of the tendency which seems to exist generally throughout the country, to shorten the tenure of office. We are aware that it springs from a wise inclination on the part of the people to increase the accountability of their officer and representative.The error consists in supposing, as modern politicians seem prone to suppose, that the more dependant an officer or representative is upon his constituency, the more valuable and faithful will be his service, and that his dependence and accountability will increase as the term for which he is appointed, is shortened, neither of which propositions do we believe to be correct. Our grounds for this conviction may furnish an interesting topic for consideration when we can give it our undivided attention. At present we must content ourselves with the simple expression of our regret, that the Convention should have made this one, we believe the only, step backward in the philosophy of government; and we also regret, exceedingly, that the sessions of the Legislature were not limited to once in two years, unless for special cause.

3. It will farther perfect our popular representation by placing restrictions upon the appropriation of State power and credit, to private uses.

The immense political patronage to be swayed by the predominant political party, under a loose construction of the old Constitution, and the exercise of which has furnished forth already some of the darkest and most revolting pages in our political history, render any commendation of the provisions upon this subject in the new Constitution entirely superfluous. To protect the credit of the State, and the honor and property of its citizens from the improvidence or corruption of legislators, was the primary and controlling motive of the people in calling for con

stitutional reform, and due guaranties upon this subject should serve more than any other to purify the popular representation, by removing a giant brood of temptations to its corruption.

The Convention have provided in the first place, as follows, against the contraction of public debt:—

"8. No money shall ever be paid out of the Treasury of this State, or any of its funds, or any of the funds under its management, except in pursuance of an apment be made within two years next after propriation by law; nor unless such paythe passage of such appropriation act; and every such law making a new appropriation, or continuing or reviving an appropriation, shall distinctly specify the sum appropriat ed, and the object to which it is to be ap plied: and it shall not be sufficient for such law to refer to any other law to fix such

sum.

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9. The credit of the State shall not, in any manner, be given or loaned to, or in aid of any individual, association or corporation.

"10. The State may, to meet casual deficits of failures in revenues, or for expenses not provided for, contract debts; but such debts, direct and contingent, singly, or in ceed one million of dollars; and the mo the aggregate, shall not, at any time, exdebts, shall be applied to the purpose for neys arising from the loans creating such which they were obtained, or to repay the debt so contracted, and to no other purpose whatever.

"§ 11. In addition to the above limited power to contract debts, the State may insurrection, or defend the State in war; contract debts to repel invasion, suppress but the money arising from the contracting of such debts shall be applied to the purpose for which it was raised, or to repay such debts, and to no other purpose what

ever.

" 12. Except the debts specified in the tenth and eleventh sections of this article, no debt shall hereafter be contracted by or on behalf of this State, unless such debt

shall be authorized by a law for some single work or object, to be distinctly speci fied therein, and such law shall impose and provide for the collection of a direct annual tax to pay, and sufficient to pay the interest on such deot as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principle of such debt within eighteen years from the time of the contracting thereof.

shall, at a general election, have been submitted to the people, and have received a majority of all the votes cast for and against it, at such election.

"No such law shall take effect until it

"On the final passage of such bill in

Corporations may be formed under general laws; but shall not be created by special act, except for municipal purposes, and in cases where, in the judgment of the Legislature, the objects of the corporation cannot be attained under general laws. All general laws and special acts passed pursuant to this section, may be altered from time to time or repealed.

#

*

"The Legislature shall have no power to pass any act granting any special char. ter for banking purposes; but corporations or associations may be formed for such purposes under general laws."

We have italicised a provision in the first section, which we fear portends an infinity of litigation and legislative pettifogging. It found a place there, we suppose, from the want of sufficient time for the members to become sure that they saw and appreciated all the important consequences that could result from adopting the strict rule, which in time they will find would have been the wise one.

II. The new Constitution will diminish local and special legislation.

The private and special applications to the Legislature have so multiplied under the present Constitution of NewYork, that it is almost impossible to secure the thorough discussion and passage of any law of a strictly general character. Special laws occupy over four-fifths of each volume of the laws which have been published in this State for several years past. The fact that the Legislature has the power to listen to and grant such applications, is the foundation of the difficulty; it explains why that body is occupied incessantly from the commencement to the close of its annual session in the passage of special acts, and finally rises year after year

with a calendar of three or four hundred bills, including usually all of a general and strictly public character, not disposed of for the want of time. It accounts also for the selection of delegates to the Legislature, with no qualifications for the duty, save pliancy and obedience to the instructions of the particular interest or clique for whose purposes, and by whose agency they obtain their election.

These evils, we trust, will be materially mitigated under the proposed Constitution, by the operation of several of its provisions, of which the following are the most important:

1. No bill can pass without the assent of a majority of all the members of both Houses.

2. No private or local bill, which may be passed by the Legislature, shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.

3. Corporations—not municipal-are to be formed under general laws, where their objects can thus be attained.

4. " The Legislature shall have no power to pass any act granting any special charter for banking purposes, but corporations may be formed for such purposes under general laws."

5. The credit of the State is not in

any manner to be given or loaned to, or in aid of, any individual association or corporation.

The most important provision of all to be made in the Constitution against special legislation, was, unfortunately, stricken out. That would have made the State liable to be prosecuted in courts of law. This mode of enforcing the payment of State debts would have furnished a righteous protection to honest State creditors, from the indifference or ignorance of the Legislature, and to the Legislature a measure of protection against the corrupting influences of dishonest creditors, and relieve that body from a weight of business which can only be disposed of in a legislative assembly at the expense of neglecting graver and more widely interesting legislative duties.

III. The proposed Constitution must inevitably secure a more speedy, pure, and economical administration of justice, for the following, among many other reasons:

1. It provides for an entire separa

tion of the judicial from the legislative power, so that the people of New-York may have no apprehension for the future of beholding their Senate engaged in the passage of unconstitutional laws, and then converting itself into a Court of Errors, to establish the constitutionality of such laws by solemn adjudication as a Court of Final Appeal.

2. It makes the judges of all the courts elective by the people, and for a term in no case exceeding eight years -securing thereby in the incumbent accountability to his constituents-to the people, judges without reference to the partisan schemes and policy of a central appointing power, and also an opportunity to be rid of an objectionable officer, without waiting for his superannuation. For reasons which we have stated on a previous occasion, we believe this change will bring to the bench a higher average of merit than the bench has been, or is likely to be, illustrated by, under the appointing sys

tem.

We sincerely regret that the State judges should have been made elective from judicial districts, rather than by general ticket from the whole State. It is a clear departure from the principle upon which the doctrine of popular elections is founded; and will render the exemplification of the elective principle, as applied to the judiciary, less triumphantly successful than its friends could have wished. The error, doubtless, occurred, in part, from the desire of the minority party in the Convention to secure the occasional election of an officer from their numbers to the bench, and partly from an entire misunderstanding of the vital distinction between a representative and a judicial officer. Nothing is clearer than that the smaller the constituency, the more adequately can it be represented by the delegate of its choice, and that dividing the responsibility of representing a constituency between two or more delegates weakens the accountability and fidelity of all; and so far disqualifies them for their representative function. But a judicial officer is not a representative officer. He is simply an interpreter of the laws. It is most important that he should not take any opinion from the shades of public sentiment about him, except those pervading sentiments,

favorable to public morality and virtue, which are unchangeable. By multiplying the judges, to be elected by a constituency, their accountability is not divided nor weakened a particle. Judicial responsibility is only divided by multiplying the judges who occupy the same bench in the same case. On the other hand, there is a clear injustice to a large portion of the State, who are obliged to receive a judge to determine the law for them in the court of last resort, who is elected from a district, comprising only an eighth, and that, perhaps, in a remote part of the State, and who is only accountable to that faction of the State for his official conduct. The determination of the Convention upon this subject was demonstrably undemocratic, unjust, and inexpedient, even to those of our Whig friends, through whose instrumentality it prevailed, and who are counting upon its casual patronage.

3. Another purifying and economising change proposed in the judicial system, and one worth all the expense and labor of the Convention, is embodied in the following provision:

"20. No judicial officer, except justices of the peace, shall receive to his own use any fees or perquisites of office."

This one section will do more than any other change without it, could possibly have done, to exalt the dignity, self-respect, and public character of the judiciary-to secure prompt and definitive action upon cases in litigation-to discourage litigious and sinister proceedings on the part of mischievous clients, or their lawyers-to discountenance and eradicate unnecessary form and technicality in our system of legal procedure-to discourage ill-considered, or procrastinating appeals to cheapen necessary litigation, and finally to elevate the character of the legal profession, the members of which, as a body, have far more influence for good or for evil upon the institutions and opinion of the community they inhabit, than the same number selected from any other class or pursuit.

4. The improvement in the judicial system, to which we have referred, is farther secured, by the abolition of Courts of Equity, as distinct judicial tribunals, and the combination of law

and equity jurisdiction in the same offi

cers.

The merit of this change consists rather in the tendencies it will establish, than in the direct results it can accomplish. It will tend to do away gradually with the absurd distinction between law and equity, and to occupy the judiciary simply with the administration of justice, by destroying the constant temptation which besets separate jurisdictions, to enlarge their powers.

"If," as we have previously had occasion to remark in this journal, single officer administered both codes, he would have a constant desire to unite them, and step by step the differences would merge, as they have grown up, until finally, the name only will be left to perpetuate the distinction."

It is not hazarding much to say, also, that the necessity of administering both codes, will make the judges themselves more accomplished and liberal-minded lawyers.

5. The testimony in equity cases is to be taken in like manner, as in cases at law, and the interminable, expensive and unsatisfactory examinations now required to be made before Masters and Examiners, are to be dispensed with, thus guaranteeing to the parties the privilege of having the witnesses give in their testimony in the presence and within the observation of the court.

6. The district judges may be migratory, and pass from county to county each successive term, or as the Legislature may determine. In this way a dangerous form of judicial favoritism to the bar may be, in a great measure, prevented local or sectional prejudices escaped by the judges-a larger acquaintance with the range and operation of the law in its application to the wants and condition of society, acquired by them, and a check given to that familiarity on the part of the bar and suitors, with the chance infirmities of judges, which is calculated to weaken the moral authority and due credit of the tribunal over which they preside.

7. The Legislature is required at its first session, after the adoption of this Constitution "to provide for the appointment of three commissioners to revise, reform, simplify, and abridge the rules of practice, pleadings, forms and proceedings of the Courts of Record of the

State, and report thereon to the Legislature from time to time."

The duty of these commissioners wisely executed-and to attempt it, is to secure an incalculable improvement upon the present system of judicial procedure in the State of New-Yorkwould, by the aid of the judicial organization proposed by the Convention, render the officers of the law, ministers of justice, instead of being what they are now too frequently forced to become legalised instruments of oppression. 8. It is likewise wisely provided, that the laws and judicial decisions shall be free for publication by any person." For the destruction of the infamous monopoly of this privilege, held at present by individuals, every class of the community should be grateful, but most especially the legal profession, upon whom, of course, it has weighed most directly and oppressively.

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We have chiefly to regret in the proposed judiciary system, in addition to the objections we have already alluded to, that the army of local justices of the peace had not been disbanded by the construction of a simpler system of county justices, who should pass from town to town throughout their counties, and be occupied exclusively with judicial business. The merit of such a change, we are assured, was appreciated by the Convention, but was not availed of, through fear of awakening the hostility of some four or five thousand justices and their dependants, against the new Constitution. only excuse for neglecting this change, furnished the best evidence of the propriety of making it.

The

We have also to regret that the judiciary organization for the whole State had not been made uniform. There was no propriety in excepting NewYork city from the good or the evil consequences of the system which is to prevail over the rest of the State. But notwithstanding these, to us, serious mistakes, we are satisfied that not only the State of New-York, but the whole country, will have matter for congratulation in the adoption of the judiciary plan we have been considering.

IV. The financial credit of the State will be effectually and permanently se