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"I heartily concur in the opinion that a new Constitution is needed, and that much of which complaint is now made can be thus remedied. The political condition of the country is so disturbed, and there are such obstinate and unreasonable factions at this time, that I very much question the policy of agitating the matter right now. As things are, the work of the convention might not be characterized by that clear-headed coolness which should control."

It is pertinent to ask at what time will there be perfect quietude in the politics of this or any other State? Meantime, as for Tennessee, the committee is far from questioning the ability of her people to exercise their power with prudence for their own good.

Our ancestors did not wait for the millennium to claim and secure the right of trial by jury, the writ of habeas corpus, the right of free speech, the right to representation; and the times in which they secured for us these and other inestimable privileges were hardly free from political disturbances and factions. Their labors, their lives, so far availed, that there are left to us to solve, in our day and time, the secondary problems of taxation, administration, and judicial procedure, and to solve these problems by the ballot. And we repeat that we cannot perceive any such excitement of the public mind in Tennessee as will forbid to our wisest men, or to the people at large, a calm and deliberate consideration of these problems; nor any public demand that cannot be settled by the ballot, or that can be settled in any other way.

The public welfare demands, among other things, that the maximum compensation of all public officials be specified and established by law; that adequate provision be made for the gubernatorial succession; that the revenue laws be so amended as to avoid the double and multiple taxation bred by the present system; that the county court system be abolished; that municipal administration be made independent of county government; that the road laws and fence laws be local, and suited to local needs; that sufficient salaries be paid the judiciary; that the entire code of criminal procedure be reformed, the amount of criminal costs in Tennessee being now seven times as much as in Georgia; that the Supreme Court sit perma

nently at the State capital; that itemized, detailed statements of all public receipts and disbursements, whether for State, county, or municipal purposes, be published at frequent intervals to the community concerned.

These and other reforms cannot be had without a constitutional convention. The constitutional convention of 1870 cost less than $22,000, and there has been paid out of the State treasury, in a single year, criminal costs aggregating over $200,000. The convention will more than pay for itself. The people need it; the law provides how and when it may be called and held. In order that there may be ample time for full and deliberate discussion, your committee recommends that all proper steps be taken by the next Legislature (1895), so that the convention may be held not later than 1897.

The committee regrets that its chairman cannot join in this report and recommendation. W. B. SWANEY,

JAS. H. MALONE.

A long discussion followed the reading of these reports. John H. Savage, of McMinnville, opened in favor of the minority report. He was followed by Baxter Smith, of Nashville; Tomlinson Fort, W. B. Swaney, Geo. T. Fry, of Chattanooga; E. C. Camp, of Knoxville, and others.

The following resolution, offered by H. H. Ingersoll, of Knoxville, was then passed:

"Resolved, That this Association approves the majority report of the Committee on Revision of Constitution, in so far as it recommends that a convention be speedily called to prepare a new Constitution, and submit the same to the people for their ratification.'

"Resolved, That the incoming President appoint a committee of five members of this Association to agitate the subject of calling a constitutional convention during the current year."

The next exercise was a 66

Biographical Sketch of Spencer Jarnigan," by M. P. Jarnigan, of Mossy Creek. The paper was read by Judge Ingersoll, Mr. Jarnigan being absent. (See Appendix.)

The Association then adjourned until 3 P.M.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

The Association convened in pursuance to adjournment.

The first exercise on the programme was the report of the Committee on Judicial Administration and Remedial Procedure, submitted by the chairman, George T. White, Esq., of Chattanooga. The report was as follows:

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION AND REMEDIAL PROCEDURE.

To the Bar Association of Tennessee:

Your Committee on Judicial Administration and Remedial Procedure would respectfully submit the following:

It has been well said that every block of marble contains a Venus. Therefore, every one that has a block of marble may be said to possess a beautiful piece of statuary. But the difficulty lies in the procedure by which the statue is developed. So of our legal rights. We have legal rights; they are many and easily acquired; but the procedure by which they are developed and enforced is often slow, crude, and uncertain. It is understood to be the duty of your committee to make suggestions for improvement in this procedure; to try and perfect the machinery of the law-the working tools of the professionwhereby the rights of parties can be accurately ascertained and speedily enforced. Most of mankind are engaged in improving the means of reaching some desired end. When we look around us we can but note the great progress in the machinery and appliances for reaching the many ends to be obtained in this day of advanced civilization. Instead of traveling in ox-carts and stage-coaches, we are now carried across the continent upon steam-engines and palace-cars. The great, panting mogul steamengine of to-day would not know its clumsy, rude, ancestor of

a few years ago. A newspaper published in New York city the latter part of the seventeenth century stopped its presses to print the latest news from Europe, which was that Napoleon Bonaparte had fought and won a great battle some two months before. The news had just reached America by sail. How different now! If the Queen of England sprains her ankle, it is known throughout the civilized world before the leech can

fairly administer to her sufferings. Indeed, the world about us, in its mode and means of procedure, is constantly advancing and improving its machinery and means and modes of accomplishing its ends. How is it with the law? Are we

keeping pace with the age? Are our means of procedure improved, shortened, quickened, and made to fit the new condition of things, that it is made to, and must, to some extent, regulate? We are forced to admit that it is not. While we have in some instances tired of the slow and stately tread of the common law, and provided for summary remedies, yet our means and mode of travel to our ends are far behind the progress of the material world around us. Indeed, it may be said that the law's reproach lays in the law's delay in its procedure. The rights of litigants are sufficiently certain, but the machinery for developing them-grinding them out as it were-is old, slow, and antiquated. We are aboard of the ox-cart. The world goes flying past us on a palace-car. A Georgia darky was once asked how far it was to Augusta. He said: "If you walk, it are ten miles; if you rides the hoss, it am five miles; but if you mounts de cars, you is dar already." We are, in our mode of procedure, doing too much "walking," while the business world is "dar already."

It is known to all members of this Association that many of the graver evils in our system of judicial administration cannot be remedied under the present State Constitution.

The attention of the Association has been called to this many times by previous reports of your committee, and it is not thought that any thing can be added on the subject of constitutional changes. It is therefore the object of this paper to suggest changes in little matters, which can be made under the present Constitution, and such as, it would seem, the Legislature could be brought to enact into laws which, in the opinion of your committee, would materally aid in the dispatch of business, and help to remove that delay which has so long been the law's reproach.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

First. We begin where most lawyers begin-with justices of the peace. The stay of judgments for eight months belongs

to the stage-coach period, and should be repealed. When this law was passed, if a man in Johnson County, in the upper end of the State, had money coming to him in Shelby County, it would take from two to three months to send and get it. If his means were beyond the limits of the State, it might take him the full eight months to realize upon them. In that condition of things, there might have been some reasou for this long delay after a judgment, which could be so summarily rendered before a justice of the peace. But now, by proper steps, and the use of the appliances which the business world has provided us with, we can communicate with our antipodes in less than three months, and, when the amounts are small, the stay should be for a shorter period of time. Eight months' stay in this fast age, is unreasonably long, to say nothing of the increased jurisdiction of justices of the peace in amounts since the eight months' stay law was enacted. The very fact. that a thousand dollar judgment may be stayed before a justice of the peace for eight months, drives litigants to the higher courts to avoid this long delay, and thereby the defendant is made to pay a larger bill of costs, and thus the law works a hardship and burden to the party it is intended to favor and protect. What lawyer would now sue upon a thousand dollar note before a justice of the peace, with the prospects of an eight months stay, when he can bring a bill in chancery on the same note, and so search the defendant's conscience as to entitle him to a decree on bill and answer within less than six months? On the other hand, the law works a particular hardship upon plaintiffs recovering judgments for small amounts against the wealthy. A laboring man, who lives by his day's work, must have his daily earnings. If he sues, he is advised that the judgment may be stayed for eight months. Rather than be subject to this delay, he gives up his rights and accepts what his employer chooses to give him, or gets his judgment and sells it, at a heavy discount, to the usurer.

In the opinion of your committee, there should be no stay of judgments under $25; a stay of thirty days for judgments between $25 and $250; a stay of sixty days for judgments between $250 and $500; and a stay of ninety days for judgments for $500 to $1,000. What lawyer has not astonished his for

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