Napton, W.B., Letter, 1857, (C1879)

              				Oct.3, [1857]

C. F. Jackson esq:
      My dear sir,
		  Your letter of the 25th is received.  Our correspondence
has embraced four topics, the Rail Roads, the Banks,
Emancipation & Salaries.  The last is the least important to
the public interest - but I have dwelt more at large upon it
than any other.  I have written you two, perhaps three, letters
& one detached paper on this point & have no doubt wearied
you with the topic.  You have probably inferred that I have
an overweening solicitude on this subject & have perhaps
evinced more importunity than is becoming where personal
interests may seem to predominate.
	The truth is, the great mass of the people feel no
interest in this Court, its character, its Judges or their salaries,
and the great mass of their representatives participate in
this feeling.  So far as mere pecuniary questions are concerned,
it is true, that only a very small portion of society,
the mercantile & landed interests & the lawyers, have much
to do with this Court.  But it should not be forgotten,
that there is a class of questions, at all times liable to
come up, in which the entire state has great & important
interests.  This tribunal decides Constitutional questions &
pecuniary questions involving the public.  Is it safe to
risk such questions to any fifteen shilling lawyer whom
accident or locality or the indifference of the public may
put in this station?  Yet under the present rate of salaries
& the present system of elections, such an event may occur,
& will occur without changes in the one or the other.  It is
upon principles of public expediency, therefore, that I feel
warranted in urging that these offices be put in a condition

[written vertically in right margin]: 871