Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1867-08-09
THE APPROACHING ELECTION

We are not at all sure that an elective
Judiciary, with limited tenure of Office, Is
any improvement on the system of our fa-
theirs, under which the Judges we're nomi-
mated by the Governor, confirmed by the SEN
ate, and held their Offices for life, or during
good behavior. The Constitution Of 1888
limited the tenure of Office, and an amend
ment of 1850 made the Judiciary elective.
Many good men Of both political parties
opposed these changes at the times of their
inception, and many good men aol0 regard
the experiment as an accomplished failure.
There can be no question that the farther
removed the Judges are from party associa-
ton and position, and from partisan feeling,
the more likely is it that the law will be ju-
diUiaily administered. Aud yet under the
present system we are now approaching an
election for Supreme Judge, which is of the
utmost national importance, in view Of the
Presidential election of next year, and the
influence this election viii have upon that.
If the Democratic party falsely so.called)
fail to carry Pennsylvania this Fall, they
have played their last card. The utmost
hardihood of assurance will scarcely enable
them to brazen the thing out any farther.
They viii then surely abandon the offensive
carcass of their dead party and bury it out
of the sight of honest and loyal men, and
start some new party on new issues and with
new ieaders-issues and leaders that viii not
recall to mems visions the bloody drama
through which we have just passed party
organization operated for years in the inter
ests of slavery, eliminating in the imbecile
administration of Buchanan, and in desc
lating war which loaded the nation with
debt, and ridged the whole country from the
Susuuehanna to the Gull with the graves Of
a million of men hurried into eternity in the
prime Of youthful manhood.
1t is said that the men who call them
selves the leaders of the Copperhead party
of this State, of whom Mr.. Wallace o.
Clsarfeld is the great Corypheus are moi
satisfied with the repeated defeats Of the las
nine years, which we would suppose nigh
now be regarded as their normal, or at leas
chronic condition, but are really making ;
grand efort-with unusual carein the matter
of township and county organizations, anC
with their usual use of money and whiskey
AS blind to their operations they are
publishing in all their county papers tthey
reach their people mainly through theil
county papers, the mass of the reading anC
thinking public having advanced long sine,
beyond the position Of the sham-Democra
Cyl editorials from the Philadelphia Age
and Mercury in which they claim that, 'th,
selection Of Judge is a matter which
should be out Of the range of politics"
in Judicial election we should vote 70,
the man mot the party" &c.
What a consummate assurance of men
dacity? VIII they never learn to be homes
with the people2 VIII they never learn /,
know that the maxim "A lie well stuck to i
as good as the truth, " is false and scan
dalOus One2 Who made the election o
Judges poltical2 In 1851, when the Who'll
Eve Judges of the Supreme Bench were frs
elected why did not these people, then tn