The anomaly of the Constitution was the absence of provision for the
judicature, the third co-ordinate branch of the government. One court
was created for the trial of impeachments and the correction of
errors, but the great courts of original jurisdiction, the Supreme
Court and the Court of Chancery, as well as the probate court, the
county court, and the court of admiralty, were not mentioned except
incidentally in sections limiting the ages of the judges, the offices
each might hold, and the appointment of clerks. Instead of recreating
these courts, the Constitution simply recognised them as existing. The
new court established, known as the Court of Errors and Impeachment,
consisted of the president of the Senate, the senators, the
chancellor, and the three judges of the Supreme Court, or a major part
of them. The conception of vesting supreme appellate jurisdiction in
the upper legislative house was derived from the former practice of
appeals to the Council of the Province,[9] which possessed judicial
as well as legislative power. The Constitution further followed the
practice of the old Council by providing that judges could not vote on
appeals from their own judgments, although they might deliver
arguments in support of the same--a custom which had obtained in New
York from the earliest times.[10]

[Footnote 9: _Memorial History of the City of New York_, Vol. 2, p.
612.]

[Footnote 10: _Duke's Laws_, Vol. 1, Chap. 14.]

In like manner provincial laws, grants of lands and charters, legal
customs, and popular rights, most of which had been in existence for a
century, were carried over. The Constitution simply provided, in a
general way, for the continuance of such parts of the common law of
England, the statute law of England and Great Britain, and the acts of
the legislature of the Colony of New York, as did not yield obedience
to the government exercised by Great Britain, or establish any
particular denomination of Christians, or their priests or ministers,
who were debarred from holding any civil or military office under the
new State; but acts of attainder for crimes committed after the close
of the war were abrogated, with the declaration that such acts should
not work a corruption of the blood.

The draft of the Constitution in Jay's handwriting was reported to the
convention on March 12, 1777, and on the following day the first
section was accepted. Then the debate began. Sixty-six members
constituted t