“fear of God,” and “who hated covetousness;” or would not take “_fees_” or levy severe contributions on their victims, or the victims of others’ wrongs, or commit them to prison on false or trivial charges, to exact the payment of “charges and costs.” He did not leave the _election_ of the magistrate to any body of the people whom they were to judge, much less to the worst or dissolute portion of them. The very word “magistrate,” (from _magister_, master,) implying control, direction, suggests to the mind the idea of equity, safety, and purity. It excites reverence and a sense of exalted dignity, and imposes such a power and responsibility as never should be exercised by a bad or incompetent man. In countries where the magistrate is _appointed_ by the head or ruling power for his qualifications, and is _independent_ of the people over whom he presides, this feeling or sentiment, as a general thing, has been justified. The people living under the administration of such, lay themselves down and sleep in peace, and arise and go to their avocations, feeling that their rights, their property, and their lives are secure, because the righteous magistrate dwells in the land! Under our democratic ideas, that because “the people are sovereign,” we must therefore permit them, in carrying out these ideas, to exercise the power of electing all of our officials from the highest to the lowest, we run a great risk of placing the liberty and the welfare of the citizen, in the hands of bad and immoral men. However capable the people may be _as a whole_ to judge of the qualifications and fitness of any certain person for a magistrate, _if they would as a whole exercise their sovereignty_, no one, we presume, will claim that the portion of the “sovereigns” who congregate in “grog-shops,” and act under the inspiration of intoxicating beverages, in procuring nominations, are properly exercising the sovereign power, or that “the voice of _the people_,” thus expressed, is “the voice of God.” That _some_ good magistrates, as we truly have, are elected under the present system, but illustrates the truth _that it is possible_ to elect the right kind of men to office, if the better class of citizens will but exercise the privilege of the franchise, which under our theory of government it is the _bounden duty_ of every good man to do. The evils arising from the magistracy, as at present administered, are the results of two causes, which ought to be removed: 1st. The mode of selecting or making magistrates. 2d. The mode of compensating them. From the nature and duties of their office, they should be removed as far as possible from any dependence upon the favour, the votes, or the fees of the people over whom they judge or rule.