374 " HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. [1848. 



removalists, and other means were resorted to by a few of them, 

 to defeat the measure, which it may be proper at this time to 

 forbear to mention. 



The question had been decided, upon the plan that they had 

 accepted as the proper one, and had the removalists been de- 

 feated, the erection of a new jail at Chester would have been 

 acquiesced in by them without a murmur. Under such circum- 

 stances, the author has never been able to see hoAV the gentle- 

 men who continued their opposition to removal, after a vote had 

 been taken on the question, could reconcile their conduct to 

 the injunction, "as ye would that men should do to you, do ye 

 also to them likewise." 



The Hon. Sketchley Morton still represented the County in 

 the House of Representatives, and acting in good faith, no diffi- 

 culty was experienced in the passage of a confirmatory bill in 

 that body. But in the Senate, it was soon discovered that our 

 representative, Mr. Williamson, then Speaker of that body, was 

 hostile to the bill, and that the services of other members of the 

 Senate from distant parts of the Commonwealth had in some 

 way been secured to make speeches against it, and to aid in its 

 defeat. Among these was the late Governor Johnson. The bill 

 was accordingly defeated in the Senate. 



After this unfair and unjust treatment, the removalists at 

 once resorted to the Supreme Court, to test the constitutionality 

 of the Removal Act, under which the vote had been taken. Here 

 they were met by counsel employed by the anti-removalists ; 

 but before any action had been taken by the Court upon the 

 main question, certain signs in the political horizon indicated 

 that it might become a matter of some consequence to certain 

 politicians, that so large a body of voters as the removalists of 

 Delaware County should be pacified, after the treatment their 

 fair and just bill had received in the Senate. A sudden change 

 appears to have been efiected in the views of certain Senators, 

 on the grave question of the right of the majority to rule, and 

 information was accordingly conveyed to the leading removalists, 

 that a confirmatory act could then be passed. One was passed ; 

 but as the anti-removalists had to be consulted, the action of 

 the Senate of Pennsylvania resulted in the monstrosity that 

 here follows, which was only concurred in by the House, because 

 nothing better could be had : — 



" -An Act relative to the removal of the Seat of Justice in Dela- 

 ware County. 



" Section 1. Be it enacted, ^c. That the several provisions of 

 an Act entitled 'An Act concerning the removal of the seat of 

 justice in Delaware County,' approved March 3d, eighteen bun- 



