THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE. 599

mittee in reporting a bill to alter and abolish a most important part
of the constitution; and, also, in reporting a bill for the purpose
of reducing the Chancellor's salary below what had been constitu
tionally secured to the Chancellor for the time being, for the last
two-and-thirty years. But so it was: this committee to whom the
register's communication was referred, found it perfectly applicable
to these subjects, and pregnant with both of those very important
bills. And, accordingly, on the 21st of January, seemingly as a
report in part, they introduced the bill proposing to abolish the
office of Chancellor; and on the next day they made a further
report, by presenting the bill, by which it was intended to assert
^ad establish the right to cut down the Chancellor's salary at
pleasure.

The first of these bills was expressed in these words : "An act
to repeal all such parts of the constitution and form of government,
as relate to the appointment of a Chancellor.—Be it enacted by the
General Assembly of Maryland, That all those parts of the consti-
tution and form of government, which require the appointment of
a Chancellor be, and the same are hereby repealed." This is the
whole of it. There was no clause directing the publication of it
for the purpose of apprizing the people, that it was intended to
take effect as an alteration of the constitution; without which it
could never operate as such; and without which no bill intended
as an alteration of the constitution had ever before been reported
or passed.

It is no where said, or intimated, whether the ultimate object of
this bill was to expunge from our code the whole of the principles
of equity or not; or whether it was intended to have no separate
court of chancery; or to have such courts, but no Chancellor; or
where or how those powers and duties, now held and discharged
by the Chancellor, were to be deposited and administered. The
first sections of the act of 1804, chap. 55, framed the present six
judicial districts; and then the same act declared that the General
Court should be abolished. The act which destroyed the General
Court began by providing an ample substitute. But by this act, for
abolishing the office of Chancellor, there would have been an effec-
tual pulling down; but no building up of any kind whatever.

On contemplating this short bill many inquiries suggest them*
selves; as, whether it would be expedient to.eradicate from our
code every principle of equity or not? whether, if those principles
are to remain, they can be administered easier, more speedily, and