kind have abundantly demonstrated that gold and silver constitute the best possible material for money, and why should we weary our brains and be fooled out of our substance in a fruitless search after something better? We cannot enlarge upon this topic in this place without breaking in upon the arrangement of topics which we have made upon the general subject, and which we intend to consider at large in their proper order as fast as the weeks roll round.

We hope our friends of the Advocate will not consider us over ultra. We are happy to observe that they are not disposed to encourage even this mode of banking, which leads us to hope that we shall agree, substantially, upon this important question.

MODE OF SELECTING JUDGES-No. 1

[June 14, 1846]

Having shown, as we think, that whatever mode is adopted, so far as the choice of men is concerned, the selections must be made, not by the people in their primary capacity, but by agents chosen by them either directly or indirectly, the only question seems to be as to what system of agency is calculated to secure the best selections.

The system of agency under the elective mode of filling offices of any kind is loose and irresponsible. In the selection of anything higher than a corporation, or, at the highest, a town officer, we must resort to the principle of representation. The rate of representation must be fixed by an irresponsible committee, constituted oftentimes by anything but a fair expression of the popular will, regulated by no law, and usually based upon no reliable data. The rate of representation for the different counties being thus fixed by a central or state committee, the representation for towns is fixed by county committees, constituted and acting in a similar manner.

The rate of representation being thus fixed, not by the people, but by agents chosen in the loosest manner imaginable, the people, at the convenience of those agents, are called upon to act in the selection, not of officers, but [of] agents to choose other agents to act for them. And how are these primary meetings conducted? We need not apprise the reader that the business is often, if not usually, done up in the most summary manner, and in accordance with the preconcerted plan of a few managers. As an illustration we will here relate an anecdote which was never before put upon paper: In the early history of the territory we attended a mass meeting for the nomination of officers. The meeting being organized, a nominating committee was moved and appointed, and being about to retire, the chairman of the committee rose, and with all the gravity of a pick-axe suggested to the chair that the committee should be furnished with "that list of candidates." We had been appointed one of the committee, and notwithstanding this curious incident concluded to serve just for mischief, and found, sure enough, that the candidates had all been selected ready to our hands, and, although we went against the whole "list," yet so thoroughly had the committee been packed that the most of the candidates, in their proper order, were reported back to the meeting.

This is the way in which agents to select the higher officers, or to select other agents to do it for them, are chosen. A few individuals in a town may, by concert of action, assemble at an early hour and secure their chairman, and by snap nominations secure their delegates, and the people really have but very little to do about it. Balloting is not usually resorted to, and when it is it is not kept open to all who may come during the day, but is confined to those who are present at the moment.

The inferior convention being thus constituted, they assemble and act with more fairness and deliberation, but still liable to similar abuses, in the selection of local officers or of delegates to a higher convention. A state convention being

thus constituted, it assembles, we will suppose, to select a judge. Their proceedings will be characterized, no doubt, by greater regularity and order than those of the lower convention, but what opportunity have they to act deliberately or understandingly? The courts are the final safeguards of our property, our liberties, and our lives. A judge should not only possess a strong mind and legal ability, but sterling integrity and immovable firmness, and be able to control his passions and prejudices. These qualifications are rarely found combined in the same individual. The members of the convention come together from every part of the state, and not one in five of them know anything of the fitness or unfitness of any one candidate for nomination. They have no time to consult, inquire [into] or investigate objections which may be made. They have left their business, are on expense, and must do up their work today and go home tomorrow. The nomination once made, it is next to impossible to change it, and so far as the selection of a man and the party selecting him are concerned the choice might as well be perfected at this stage of the proceedings as any other.

This system of agency for the selection of officers, defective as we all must admit it to be, is still the only practicable system with respect to the legislative and executive departments, because there is no previously constituted agency of the people to select them, and the authority, by whatever system of agency it is exerted, must emanate from the people.

The selections for the legislative and executive departments having been thus made, they are as really the agents of the people, and nothing more, as were the agents who selected them. They have power to enact laws which bear upon the interests of all classes in the community; yet no one deems it necessary, as a general rule, to submit these laws to a popular vote, or that the power which enacts them is an independent and irresponsible power, or that these laws are anything else than the will and power of the people expressed and exerted through their agents.

What objection, then, can there be to entrusting these same agents with the selection of judges? The selection must be made by agents at any rate, and these agents are certainly chosen with as much care, deliberation, and fairness as any agents can be. They are originally selected, it is true, by the same imperfect system of agency that judges would be under the elective mode, but they must pass the ordeal of a popular vote before they can act; and if the popular vote has as much to do with the selection of men as the sticklers of an elective judiciary seem to imagine, legislative agency must be vastly preferable on this ground alone to an irresponsible convention, and if judges are to be elected, the legislature should by all means be constituted the nominating agency. We contend that the popular vote has little or nothing to do with the choice of men, but to those who maintain that it has we might return one of their own questions are not the people qualified to select their own agents?

But the chief ground of preference for legislative agency in the selection of judges is that they are held to a more strict accountability and have better opportunities to act deliberately and cautiously. All the important doings of a legislature are matters of public record, and these records can be referred to at any time as conclusive evidence of the doings of any individual member. We could name instances in our territorial history in which members have recorded their votes in favor of executive nominations to their sore regret and everlasting discredit, when, had they done the same thing in a convention, nobody would have known who they were. These instances are indeed rare, and rare because of the impossibility of escaping the responsibility. The journals of the Council will show a multitude of bad nominations made by a really irresponsible executive and rejected by a responsible council, and which would never have been made had the executive been equally responsible to the people.

If the two houses of the legislature are constituted this agency they have not one day merely, but the period of a whole legislative session during which they can consult with each other and with their constituents if necessary, and canvass the merits of different candidates and bestow upon the selection all the care and deliberation which its importance and the difficulty of making good selections demand. In this respect executive nominations, with the final action of one or both houses of the legislature, are preferable to mere legislative elections. By the latter mode nothing can be definitely known publicly as to who is likely to be chosen until the choice is made. If the executive be required to nominate, he has time and opportunity to counsel with the representatives of the people in making a selection, and when the nomination is announced, final action upon it may be suspended for any reasonable period and in the meantime public scrutiny is directed to the individual, and if the humblest citizen in the state knows aught against his integrity he can make it known and secure an impartial investigation of the facts, and if the nominee be found unworthy, he can still be rejected, and a dozen nominees may thus be successively rejected if necessary.

Is not such an agency for so important a purpose preferable to one more loosely constituted and which must necessarily act with greater precipitation? The question is not whether the people have the right or the capacity to select their own rulers, and to pretend that any such question is involved is a mistake bordering upon disingenuousness. In either case the selections are made by the authority of the people, but in neither case are they made by the people directly. The people have the unquestionable right to select their own rulers in all the departments of government, but inasmuch as they cannot do it directly they have another right which is entitled to respect, and that is to establish such a system of agency in a given case as in their judgment is best calculated to secure the desired result.