less to hope to exclude that mere partisanship that has so long mingled with state elections everywhere.

We do not wish to see politics excluded from our state for we feel certain that the checks of parties on each other are highly beneficial, but we wish to see acerbity of feeling lessened, and argument resorted to by men, rather than irritation. All know that it is upon trifles most generally that the quarrels are most bitter, and that the usual weapons of partisan politicians are recrimination and abuse. There is too much done nowadays by legislators, and each act calls out the bitterness of party feeling. Let sessions be short, let them be held every other year, and men will argue more coolly, will avoid excitement, and will settle more generally upon those things they wish done.

Of course the governor should have power to call an extra session when he chooses, but as this would not produce extra pay or hold out inducements to do more than was necessary it would be called as seldom as possible, never without a strong necessity, and would end with the consideration of the special measure for which it was called.

AN ELECTIVE JUDICIARY

[ July 14, 1846 ]

We copy from the Wisconsin Argus a long article on the subject of the Judiciary,11 in which the elective mode is condemned as insufficient and dangerous. We do not agree with the writer in his positions, but many of our friends do, and we therefore think it right to lay the subject fairly before our readers for consideration.

We always approach this subject with a feeling of hesitation, for it is one of the most important for a new state, it is one we should much fear to see abused, and while the truly

"See post, 473 article on "The Mode of Selecting Judges," from the Madison Wisconsin Argus, July 7, 1846.

thinking men of all parties and all professions disagree so entirely on the subject it would seem to us that every man ought to hold his own opinion with some grain of doubt, while he should consider the opinions of others entitled to much respect.

The Argus states truly that our system of government, except only at primary meetings and in the election of very few officers, is not democratic but representative. We do not have a direct voice in the choice of our legislators because they must be nominated in some manner by agents and must be supported as party men. Yet we do not see that this is more an objection to the election of judges than of many other officers.

To our minds the great desideratum is to get judges who will hold themselves above politics, whether they be appointed or selected, and if anyone will show us how that object can be secured we will give up all our own favorite ideas and adopt his. We want to see the best men among us on the bench, and we want to see those men so well paid that they may feel willing to remain there.

There is one thing, however, that seems certain to us, and that is, our convention will be much governed in this matter by the state of New York. If the men in that convention think they dare run the risk of the election of judges by the people we do not doubt that it will increase the feeling on the subject here, for most of us feel satisfied that in an agricultural state, where cities are few and large villages rare, people will always elect better men, whether for the bench or the legislative halls. If, on the contrary, New York, after cool deliberation, shall decline making the change, many among our people, who have been long doubtful, would be decided against the measure as one that had been condemned by men of ability.

If it were only among lawyers, even eminent lawyers, that an opinion adverse to an elective judiciary was held, we might set it down as professional prejudice, but this is not so. Lawyers do not stand alone. There are many of our

best and purest statesmen who shudder at the idea of an elective judiciary, while there are others who believe it to be the simplest and best mode of choosing the purest and most capable men. For ourselves, we must acknowledge that we cannot see the danger in the elective system, while we would not be certain that a better might not yet be brought out.

The many systems to be laid before the New York convention will soon be fully canvassed, and it is to be expected that some one will become the great favorite there, and if so we must canvass it on its own merits, as the one we will be most likely to adopt, with perhaps some alterations to suit the difference of the countries.

CURRENCY: USURY

[July 21, 1846]

A Mr. Godek Gardwell as he styles himself (but whether the name is a real one we do not know) has sent us a long paper on the evils of the currency and the remedy for those evils, and requests us to publish such parts of it as we may deem fitting or else to give a synopsis of the whole. We must decline doing either. We will, however, notice his grand panacea, which is that the government should establish a grand safety fund for the people, whence all who wanted money and could give security might borrow at three per cent. In order to prove how entirely all this might be done Mr. Gardwell goes into a long account of figures, which we doubt whether he understands, and know we shall not attempt to.

Currency tinkering seems to be the besetting mania of a portion of the people of this country, and each has his great plan by which some kind of money can be made safe and plentiful. When Pitt had increased the national debt of England to so great an amount that people became frightened lest the government might fail there were hundreds of treatises spawned each year to prove how easy it would be by

this plan, by that plan, and by t'other plan to pay off the debt with very little expense and no inconvenience to the people.

To us it appears that the two projects are about equally wild. You cannot pay a national debt without taking the funds from the people. You cannot make money plentiful by legislation without doing injustice somewhere, and in the end everywhere. You might, indeed, force the half dollar to pass for a dollar by a law, but we all know this would be as foolish as wicked.

From fifteen to twenty states of this Union have been for from thirty to forty years past mainly endeavoring to form safe systems of banking, and not one of them has yet succeeded. The talents of our first statesmen have been employed in the work, common sense has been brought to its aid, experiments after experiments have been tried, but all have failed. With these facts before us is it not fair to presume that there is something radically wrong in these attempts to force a currency-that it would be better to abandon the whole matter in despair?

A large party in this country considered for a long time a United States bank as the only reliable currency maker that could possibly be formed, and many think so yet, but the question was brought before the people, the bank wisely, as we think, condemned, and although many differ from the great majority on the question, still we believe there are few who do not agree with us that it would be utterly impossible to revive the institution.

To us it seems evident that no panacea will ever again find favor in this country. The precious metals must sooner or later become the currency and exchanges be made by mercantile enterprise and depend upon mercantile credit for the credit of the paper. Such is, in fact, the case now, among all business men.

It is true we have bank paper, but it is little used for exchange; it is in fact only used because the banks have power to force it into circulation among the mass of the people. It

has very little credit of its own and every day is taking from that little.

In its best days the United States Bank was a convenience to merchants, and so in good times is any bank. It is in hard times they fail, only then. It is when you want assistance that you cannot expect it. When you do not want it, it is proffered to you liberally. Now we think that no sort of tinkering can do the least good, and we hope it will always be discouraged. Safety fund systems, banks, fiscalities, and all such things are getting to have an odious savor, and we believe few even of those once strongly in their favor would care to see them revived.

Usury is another matter that has attracted much attention, produced many stringent laws, and caused those laws to be repeatedly broken by the very classes they were intended to protect. Indeed, a man who pleads usury is, in nine cases out of ten, looked upon with contempt. Now, a law that is thus treated has something in it fundamentally wrong; and while in the present state of things we cannot point out a remedy, we still think if the currency were once regulated by not being regulated at all, the protection against usury would be much less needed, if it were needed at all.

Usury in all the states is the same, that is, taking unlawful interest, and is a crime, but the difference of interest that may be taken in the different states is very various. In the eastern states it is a crime to take over six per cent on loans. In New York this is not a crime, but it is to take over seven per cent. In Louisiana ten per cent is, or was, allowed, and here a man may take twelve per cent, or double the rate he may take in New England.

Thus, when the legislator is making a law to declare usury a crime, he has first to say what amount shall be allowed, and to do this he has to look to the wants of the country. After the law is once made it is stable, but the value of interest is not, and while the law here might declare six per cent to be the rate, ten might be profitable to the borrower, and yet the very next year he might not wish to give even six.