CHAPTER XVI

SOME   CONTRASTS   BETWEEN   THE   EARLIER   COURTS   OF   THE   STATE

AND PRESENT TRIBUNALS----THE CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION

OF 1890----TREATMENT OF THE JUDICIARY BY THE CONVEN¬
TION OF 1894----THE NEW COURT OF APPEALS----THE APPELLATE

DIVISIONS----ABOLITION OF THE SUPERIOR COURTS----SURROGATES'

COURTS----JUDICIARY     PENSIONS----RECENT    CONSTITUTIONAL

AMENDMENTS AFFECTING THE JUDICIARY----THE WORK OF THE

COURTS—THEIR POWER TO DECLARE LEGISLATION VOID----COURTS

AND PUBLIC OPINION—INDEPENDENCE OF COURTS VITAL----FU¬
TILE ATTEMPTS IN CONGRESS TO BRING FEDERAL JUDICIARY
UNDER POPULAR CONTROL----ITS UNWISDOM.

When the courts of the early State are contrasted with
present tribunals, very marked differences are brought sharply
to notice. The highest appellate court in the latter part of the
eighteenth and first part of the nineteenth century was a large
and unwieldy tribunal. All of the senators participated in the de¬
cisions, although comparatively few wrote opinions. In this re¬
spect the court was unlike the House of Lords, the final court
of appeal in Great Britain. There the law lords alone really con¬
stitute the court. The early Supreme Court, on the contrary,
consisted of but three members, who guarded their prerogatives
so jealously that they were unwilling to share them with a lar¬
ger number. Under the second constitution the court of errors
and appeals continued unchanged (save as to actual numbers),
the Supreme Court became a court exclusively of appellate juris¬
diction and the circuit judges sat at nisi prius and oyer and ter-
313