Charles OConor.
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CHARLES O CONOR. II. By Irv1ng Browne. MR. O'CONOR was a member of the Court, and in substituting for the three this committee appointed to frame the single eight-judge court." He strongly in judiciary article in the convention of 1846. sisted on a single supreme court for the I have carefully looked over all that he is whole state. He said that " in the Con reported to have said and done in the con stitution of 182 1, and its predecessor, was vention on this subject,' and there is nothing embodied the best model for a judicial to substantiate the claim which Mr. Bigelow system." "The Court of Chancery, or a reports that he made to him, but a great separate tribunal, had been unceremoniously deal to the contrary; so much, in fact, brushed away, and apparently with much that I am inclined to think Mr. Bigelow personal satisfaction to members here," and must have misunderstood him. Mr. O'Conor he paid' a glowing tribute to the chancellor. did not assent to the article which was He favored an ultimate court of more than adopted. On the contrary, he presented a eight judges," and contended that some of minority report on behalf of himself alone. them ought to be laymen. " He was one of This, it is true, proposed to vest judicial the enemies of this new judicial system, be power in the Supreme Court and certain cause he did not believe in its capacity." inferior courts, and to form a court of He uniformly voted in the convention against appeals, but it is evident that *he regretted the codifiers. He voted against the judiciary the imminent changes which he found himself article, and finally he declared that " he unable to withstand. In the course of his thought the convention had altogether failed remarks he observed : — to present to the people a Constitution which "But conceiving, as he did, that this would meet the exigencies of the times, or report destroys nearly all the good features in any degree remedy the difficulties in this in our existing and past judicial systems, respect, which led to the calling of this con and furnished nothing that can be deemed vention — that it did not in any moderate an equivalent," he deemed it his duty to degree meet his approval, and was a most state his objections. " He thought it would signal failure. It would therefore be his be impossible to do the business of the duty to vote against the Constitution, and to state under such a system, and that what 1 induce his fellow-citizens to take the same was done would be badly done." He spoke course when they came to vote on it." of the proposed Court of Appeals as " a kind To be perfectly fair to Mr. O'Conor in of mongrel court between the two we have this matter, I subjoin the continuation of had, without the merits of either." " The his remarks referred to in Mr. Field's letter, courts we had prior to 182 1 were perfectly which will show the extent of his efforts at unexceptionable." He spoke of the old law reform, and also serve as an example of Court of Errors as " admirably framed," his forcible and excellent style : — "emphatically the court of the people," "Although it had been his fortune to practice •' the best court in the state," " hourly in for a good many years in the rigid and technifusing new blood into the law." He said " the 1 He desired sixteen judges, elected by senatorial dis sad mistake was in abolishing" " that court, tricts, tor four years. Argus Report, p. 541. Among his the Supreme Court and the Chancellor's vagaries he wished to give that court power on motion to determine the venue of suits in the Supreme Court! (Argus 1 Constitutional Debates, Atlas ed., Albany, 1846. Report, p. 641).
