The Portland daily press., 1865-12-19
The Judiciary Question.

Druited by those members of the bar who per-
haps aspire to judicial honors. The demon of
| avarice seems to have taken possession not
only of those who peddle their wares at a
hundred per cent. profit, but also to have
made his way into the learned professions. 1t
no uncommon thing now to hear of the
iohowers ofthe meek and lowly Jesus, who pro-
ieSS 70 preach his doctrines p receiving there
ior, iorlh three to ten thousand dollars year,
Whue tner DiVine Master had not where to
lay his head. Wonder what he would saw to
such disciples, should he revisit the scenes of
his earthly pilgrimage
| But the great lights of the judiciary have
seldom been suspected of venality. It was
| never intended to make the temple of Justice
the market place for money changers, or the
Office of administering at the altar place to
be sought for its pecuniary emoluments. 1t is
true many inroads have been made Of late
upon early customs. 1t was once thought es-
sential to the independence of the Judiciary
that the Office should be for life, or during
good behavior. Then, with us, it was limited
to the age OF seventy years; and now to a
term OF seven years. 1t is easy to see that the
effect of these changes is to render the judges
more time serving and subservient TO the in
huential and powerful, as in case of the in
cumbent Of the Presidential chair, most of the
first term Is spent in securing influence for
re-appointment; and think it would be un-
wise in the extreme to add to the motives of
such aspirations, by an increase of salary.
The present salary (s2,2O0) may be moder-
ate for ajudge who resides in Portland, where
rents and expenses OF living are nearly double
what they are in other parts of the State; but
on the average it is much more than the first
class of lawyers throughout the State receive
from their practice, unless they unite W tn
professional business other sources of income,
and we have yet to learn OF any one who has
declined a seat ON the bench when rendered,
from that cause. Nor is the present degen-
Grated condition of the court attributable to
that reason.
In addition to the cause already alluded to,
office, there are several other causes which
conspire to the same end.
The first is that the bar themselves, or a
large part of it, don't want the first orIer of
legal talent on the bench, as has been made
manifest in several instances, by petitioning
for men to be appointed, of not more than
second or third rate talent. Leading and in
fuential members of the bar can, or think
they can, more easily influence, mislead, and
brow beat an inferior class of minds than that
of the highest order. ~ .--"-.
Second = The bar itself has degenerated
When all test ofiiterary and legal acquiremenst
for admission to the bar was abolished by the
Legislature some twenty years since, and any
body and everybody were admitted as mem
bers by paying twenty dollars, there was a
general rush into. the legal profession, of men
who never had read and were unable to read
understandingly the Revised Statutes. These
men opened law Offices all over the State and
by their mousing proclivities secured large
part of the collecting business, which was the
/ easiest and most profitable part of the profess
| sional practice.
Young men who had spent eight or ten
years in acquiring an education, and going
through regular course of legal study, and
relied upon the collecting business for sup
port while getting established in business,
were thus deprived Of their only means of
support, during this initiatory period. Many
young men of education and talent were thus
deferred from entering the profession, and
many who had entered it, abandoned it for
other and more lucrative employments. As
might have been foreseen, the bar has become
so odegenerated from this cause, that it is hard
ly able to furnish the requisite amount of legal
talent to fill the bench of our highest court.
THIRD The abelishing of the District
Court in 1852, and throwing all its jurisdiction
and business upon the hands of the Supreme
Court, was another and almost fatal blow at
the respectability and standing of the Court
in public esteem. If the change had been the
other way, and all the Jurisdiction over jury
trials had been taken from the Supreme Court
and given to the District Court, and the for
mer had been reserved with its three Judges,
as it then had, exclusively as Court of Law
and Equity, its reports might now have COM
manded the confidence and respect of former
days. l. .-ilz l-r.1- ..,a @ f.:sG
1t is an anomaly, if not downright farce,
to carry our questions of law, which we re-
serve at a jury trial and which had been ruled
upon by the. judges presiding, to a higher
Court of final resort, for determination and
settlement, and when we get there find such
higher Court composed only of an aggrega-
tion of the lower Courts from whichwe have
appealed. The inherent defects of such a
system must be apparent to the merest tyro
We have not, after all, appealed from Plate
and Herod to Caesar, as we has supposed, but
from PLATE and Herod to Herod and Plate.
Owing to the frailty of human nature, a ju-
ror who has formed or expressed an opinion
upon cause, is deemed forever disqualified to
sit upon that cause. He is presumed to be no
longer impartial and capable of receiving and
declaring the truth. Is humanity any more per-
feet on the bench than in the jury box? Doe,
not, or should not the same cause which dis
qualities man from showing impartial and
honest judgment in the one position, have the
same effect in the other? And yet, strange as
it may seem, in our judiciary system the same
| judges who form and express their opinions
during nisi, are appealed to to decide whether
| those opinions are correct @
Again-It is hardly possible for the. judge
who tries the cause before jury not to be-
! come more or less enlisted in his feelings and
| sympathies for the one party or the other, es-
| pecially If it is an important cause, and takes
up considerable time, to say nothing of the
opportunities at the nisi term, which parties
have to approach him out of Court, and op-
crate upon his feelings and judgment, and
thus render him ANYTHING but an impartial
member Of the law Court. These and many
other causes which might be named, would
time permit, have brought our judiciary to its
present degenerate condition. Yopx