and encouraged men to hazard their whole fortunes upon elections, and to degrade and polute, as far as the power of money can do so, the very altars of the government. And all this, not that the country might receive some advantage, but merely that the successful individuals may enjoy the privilege of enforcing the most ungodly extortions from the people.

Sir, under the theory of a free government, high office is designed to be the performance of a public obligation, imposed by duty and patriotism. But in California, the laws have rendered the pursuit of office a branch of business; men live by it, and speculate upon it, make its chances of success the rule of their party fidelity, and sometimes encourage the most dangerous and infamous outrages upon the rights of the entire country, in order to secure it. This is not the fault of the people, but of the government which permits such pernicious inducements to be offered for the political corruption of society, and holds out no inducements whatever to patriotism and political fidelity, but basely and injuriously offers all the rewards of the country to those only who are successful in merely gaining some office, rendering the very servants of the government greater than its masters.

In the next place, the Constitution does not restrain the Legislature from disposing of the entire public domain and property of the State, at such time and in such way and manner as it sees fit, without requiring the previous consultation, advice, or consent of the people, to whom it belongs. Nor does it expressly prohibit the Legislature from funding or otherwise forcing the people to pay demands or claims against the State and its lesser communities, illegally or unconstitutionally contracted; thus opening the door to the most momentous frauds, and introducing a general feeling of trifling and mere gambling with the rights and property of the people.

In the next place, it does not prevent nor even restrain the passage of laws of a purely private and local or individual character, whereby probably more than one half of the time and expense of the sessions of the Legislature have been usually consumed with the affairs of some few mere private individuals. This is against the economy, dignity, and objects of a great national government, such as we here require; and is also wholly unnecessary, because such affairs could be transacted in other ways with equal justice to individual rights, and greater advantage to the true interests of all local communities.

In the next place, our Constitution, still closely following its

remote original, prohibits our Legislature from ever being composed of more than eighty members in the Assembly, and half that number in the Senate. The limitation in Iowa is actually very nearly as large. We are forever prohibited by this Constitution from having upwards of twelve more members in our whole Legislature than is allowed in Iowa. The policy of allowing a large representation in the legislative bodies of free States is a matter which has given rise to so many various opinions that I will not here discuss it, lest I merely excite the opposition of members. But it does seem to me no one can reasonably doubt that our representation in California cannot long remain constitutionally limited to so small a number without actual injustice. The other house of the Legislature is already full. Not one additional member can ever be allowed there until this Constitution is changed; and whole counties already exist here without even one representative in the Assembly. The proper rule of representation is, not the dispatch of business, but to have the whole people and every portion of the country fully and fairly represented. The dispatch of business is important, but it is infinitely more important to have a full and fair representation of the people, than to merely afford facilities for the dispatch of business at their expense. And instead of the number being as small as practicable, it seems to me it ought to be as large as practicable. Certain it is, that the greater the number, the greater the security against bad, hasty, and unpopular measures of legislation. In a word, sir, I do not understand why California, with its armies of speculators, its immense resources, its vast limits, and the newness and strangeness of its general population, should be limited relatively to the smallest and most insignificant representation of any State in the Union. Political hypocrites and unthinking men might possibly prate about the expense, were it not for the well-known fact that our entire representation could be actually doubled to-day, without the least necessity for any increase at all in the public expenses.

In the next place, our Constitution makes no provision for the certain and prompt punishment of official bad conduct in judicial and other State officers. No candid person will deny that all attempts here to punish officials by impeachment, as required by this Constitution, are morally certain to interrupt and retard the public business, and to greatly increase the public expenses, without being at all well calculated to accomplish the purposes intended. It may be possible that I am in error in

relation to this objection; but I am wholly unable to discover either the necessity or justice of releasing all the officers named in the Constitution from punishment for official misconduct, except by the monarchical, aristocratic, and expensive mode of impeachment. Why should so much anti-republican ceremony be gone through with in order to punish a general State Attorney, or Surveyor, or a District Judge? There are other officers in the country of equal dignity and greater responsibility, whose occupants are allowed, by the same Constitution, to "be tried for misdemeanor in office, in such manner as the Legislature may provide." The fact that they are State officers, or nominally so, does not by any means prove that no more convenient, efficient, and satisfactory mode could be adopted for inquiring into, and, if necessary, punishing them, for their bad behavior in office. Besides, it is unequal and unjust. It favors the office of a Judge more than that of a legislator. The office of a Judge is in no sense so important and responsible as the office of a legislator. The latter is authorized to make the law, whilst the former can only apply the law, as he finds it, to given cases. And whenever he does otherwise, except when the law is unconstitutional, provision ought to be made for his immediate trial, and, if necessary, prompt removal from office. The decision of a Judge that a law is unconstitutional, ought not to be conclusive upon the people in all cases, because it amounts to nothing more than deciding or expressing the opinion of a few persons, authoritatively, that a law passed by the representatives of the people is in conflict with a law passed by the people themselves.

Now, under a wise provision of the Constitution, nearly all members of the Legislature, at least all of one branch of it, and one half of the other, are virtually tried for their official conduct, once every year. But judges, although inferior officers in point of fact, are treated as superiors. And, by vicious custom and erroneous habits of thinking, we maintain a state of things which associates with mere judges, and actually almost completely surrenders into their hands, the very rights of justice itself, of which they are properly, the mere servants, the absolute slaves.

We have just had occasion to observe that the only way to insure, or reasonably anticipate, good conduct in any mere officials, is to bring them into an immediate, quick, and sure responsibility, somewhere, for every official act which they perform. And no one who will exercise his reason, will require an argument to prove, that official responsibility ought to be com

plete and expeditious in respect to judges as any other officers in the State. The mode of doing this need not be to the public at large, but there need be no difficulty in devising a plan more satisfactory than the present, which practically exempts judges from nearly all responsibility whatever. The clothing of judges with an official importance beyond other mortals, has certainly no sound arguments to support it, and it may be questioned wether it does not lead to the very abuses which it is designed, if there be any design in it, to prevent.

Why should we continue under a Constitution which permits judges to act without any direct and imminent responsibility. In ages past the Judges of England exercised the powers now being boldly exercised by the judicial power of California. They made laws upon the bench whenever, in their opinion, it was best so to do. But all the English Judges combined could not decide cases without the right of appeal from their decisions, to the upper branch of the legislative power, the House of Lords. And besides, the monarchical and aristocratic government under which they held power, the confused and uncertain state of the laws, the want of judicial decisions to guide them, and the profound ignorance and political vassalage of the English people, at the time, afforded some excuse, and rendered such practices tolerable, if not advantageous. But what excuse is there for continuing a system which, if it does not encouarge, at least permits the same thing to be done here, at this age of the world, in this free and universally enlightened country? If the adminstration of justice was lame, blind, uncertain, whilst such judicial acts were required or tolerated in England, what reason, what propriety, what justice, what necessity is there for the same blind, lame and uncertain administration of justice at this time and in this free State? No such practices are any longer tolerated, even in England; and besides these, there is the right of appeal. Are we to progress in every other branch of government and remain stationary or go backwards, in the modes of administering justice? Of what are our Courts constituted, that they are entitled to such immense privileges, without any direct practical responsibility to any one, or any appeal from their vacillating decisions? Who are our Judges, that they alone know justice,-that they alone are wiser than all other Courts, and all other individuals? What would they be were they off the bench? What were they previous to ascending it, but inferiors to hundreds of your citizens? Has the bench changed them?

Do cushioned chairs and scarlet curtains so change the character of the poor humanity, which they support and shelter? Are we fools that we should give up to names what belong to things; and take that for wisdom and learning which may be only the sublimity of vanity? Are we rational freemen, and still willing to continue a Constitution which gives the department authorized to administer the laws, the power to change them with practical impunity? We all know that our judges are practically exempt from punishment. Scarcely any offense, short of crime itself, would be sufficient to insure their condemnation and removal from office. A majority of this Senate, acting in concurrence with the Assembly, possesses vast power in other respects, but when it comes to try some mere individual who has got elected to the office of Judge, a State Attorney, or Surveyor, we are not to be trusted to the same extent as though we were concurring in a law inflicting a death penalty. If some mere official is to be tried, we are to be distrusted and suspected, and not less than two thirds must agree upon the punishment, or none can be inflicted. In the Supreme Court, two men being a bare majority of three, may condemn a man to death, or deprive him of his property, or his liberty, but here in this numerous body of more than ten times the number, a majority is not to be trusted when acting as a court. Indeed, the cumbersome and anti-Republican mode of impeachment, as it now constitutionally exists, affords no adequate and efficient redress for this State against judicial abuses.

It may work well enough for the aristocracy in the monarchy of England, where it originated. But I know of no reason or necessity for its continuance (at least in its present form), in the Constitution of California. Its adoption in the Constitution of the United States, nearly seventy years ago, and in other Constitutions since, gives it weight, but does not prove conclusively that it can never be improved upon, in its application to officials in California.

But, sir, why should I continue to detain the Senate by pointing out defects in our Constitution which all sound thinkers, whether officials or their superiors, must admit to be full of defects? All those to which direct allusion has already been made, are, with a single exception, only a few of the defects of omission, which would readily occur to any one. attempt to recite all the defects of commission, all the errors actually contained in the Constitution, would not be necessary to my purpose, and would occupy more of the time of the

An