lar to the one under consideration. Its material provision was, "that the judges of the circuit and superior courts of Cook county hereafter to be elected shall each be paid by the said county, in addition to the salaries which may be paid to them from the State treasury, such further compensation as will make their respective salaries amount to the sum of $10,000 per year." (Laws of 1901, p. 207.) It was further pointed out in that case that while no particular set of words is used in the constitution to express the limitation of the power of the legislature with reference to a change of salary during a term of office, there is a well defined rule running through the whole instrument that a salary attached to any public office having a fixed term shall not be increased or diminished during that term. Under the holding in the Foreman case, supra, if the terms of relators commenced before July 1, 1915, then any judge elected or appointed to fill a vacancy caused by the death or resignation of any one of the relators at any time prior to the year 1921 would not be entitled to the increase of salary provided by the law in question. The exact question raised by the second contention is, when do the terms of office of circuit judges in the State begin and end? A definite time is not fixed by the constitution of 1870 for the commencement of the terms of office of judges of the circuit court of Cook county or of those who are elected in other circuits of the State, as in the case of other State officers and county officers. The date of election of circuit judges is fixed by the constitution, and by the laws enacted pursuant thereto, as the first Monday in June of certain years. The duration of the term is fixed by the constitution as six years. The term of office as fixed by law is sometimes used interchangeably with the term or time of occupancy of the incumbent of such office, but it must be distinctly borne in mind that the term of office as fixed by law is entirely different from the period of time such office is held by the incumbent thereof, sometimes referred to as

the term. The general rule seems to be that the term of office, when not fixed as to the date of its beginning and ending by a constitution or statute, begins in the case of elective offices on the date of election. (28 Cyc. 1398; State v. Constable, 7 Ohio, 7; Marshall v. Harwood, 5 Md. 423; Hughes v. Buckingham, 5 S. & M. 632.) In People v. Reinberg, 263 Ill. 536, we held that in the case of an appointive office, when the law does not fix any time for the commencement of a term of office to be filled by appointment, the term will begin to run from the date of appointment.

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Under the first constitution of the State (that of 1818) judges of the Supreme Court and inferior courts were appointed by the General Assembly and after 1824 held office during good behavior. A portion of the time while this constitution was in force the judges of the Supreme Court were required by law to hold circuit courts in addition to their duties as members of a court of appeal. At the time of the adoption of the constitution of 1848 the Supreme Court consisted of three judges, who were also holding circuit courts in the circuits of the State. Section 7 of article 5 of the constitution of 1848 provided that "the State shall be divided into nine judicial districts, in each of which one circuit judge shall be elected, * * shall hold his office for the term of six years, and until his successor shall be commissioned and qualified: Provided, that the General Assembly may increase the number of circuits to meet the future exigencies of the State." Section 13 provided that "the first election for justices of the Supreme Court and judges of the circuit courts shall be held on the first Monday of September, 1848." Section 15 provided that "on the first Monday of June, 1855, and every sixth year thereafter, an election shall be held for judges of the circuit courts: Provided, whenever an additional circuit is created, such provision may be made as to hold the second election of such additional judge at the regular elections herein provided." Section 5 of the sched

ule provided that "at the first election fixed by the constitution for the election of judges, there shall be elected one circuit judge in each of the nine judicial circuits now established in this State." The legislature that first met after the adoption of the constitution of 1848 adopted an act approved February 12, 1849, the fourth section of which provided that on the first Monday of June, 1855, and every sixth year thereafter, an election shall be held in each judicial circuit for the election of a judge for such circuit, and that whenever an additional judicial circuit shall be created, the first election of a judge for such circuit shall be held at such time as the law creating such circuit shall direct but whose term of office shall expire at the time fixed for the next regular election of judges for the judicial circuits of the State. (Laws of 1849,-1st sess. p. 71.) It thus appears that the legislature construed the constitution. of 1848 with reference to the terms of judges of the circuit courts, that such terms began and expired with the election. Not only that, but by positive legislative enactment the beginning and expiration of the six year terms were made contemporaneous with the dates of election. The last election of circuit judges under the constitution of 1848 was the first Monday in June, 1867, and accordingly the terms of such judges expired the first Monday in June, 1873. In People v. Bangs, 24 Ill. 184, it is said, referring to the case of People v. Dubois, 23 Ill. 547, and the different provisions of article 5 of the constitution of 1848 above set out, on page 187 of the opinion: "Upon this subject the legislature is expressly authorized to do two things. One is to increase the number of circuits; and the other is, in the event of the creation of a new circuit the legislature may provide that the commission of the judge first elected to supply such circuit shall expire at the next regular election for circuit judges."

We have heretofore set out the provisions of the present constitution relative to the election and terms of circuit

judges, and think it is to be inferred from the debates in the constitutional convention that the framers of the present constitution assumed the terms began with the election. (1 Debates and Proceedings of Constitutional Convention, 1017, 1059; 2 id. 1132.) It seems to have always been understood and assumed by the legislature that the terms of office of circuit judges began with the date of their election and ended at the date of election six years thereafter.

Section 23 of article 6 of the present constitution provides that the General Assembly may increase the number of circuit and superior court judges of Cook county by adding one to either of said courts for every additional 50,000 inhabitants of said county over and above a population of 400,000, and that the terms of office of the judges of said courts thereafter elected shall be six years. Pursuant to this provision of the constitution the legislature has from time to time increased the number of circuit and superior court judges of Cook county according to the increase of population. Accordingly, in the year 1887 a law was enacted in which it was provided that it appearing by the school census taken in the year 1886 that the number of inhabitants of the county of Cook was over 916,000, and that thereby the county was entitled, by section 23 of article 6 of the constitution, to six additional judges, an election be held on the first Monday of June next after the act shall take effect, for six additional judges of the circuit court, whose terms of office shall expire upon the first Monday in June, 1891, upon election and qualification of their successors in office, and that on said first Monday in June, 1891, and every six years thereafter, there shall be elected, at the same time and in the same manner as other judges of the said circuit court, six judges, successors in office of the judges in the act authorized to be elected. In 1893 another law was passed which provided that, as shown by the school census taken in 1892, the number of inhabitants of the county of Cook is over 1,500,000, and that thereby said

county is entitled, by section 23 of article 6 of the constitution, to additional judges, therefore the number of judges of the circuit court of the county of Cook be and hereby is increased from eleven, its present number, to fourteen, and that the number of the judges of the superior court of the county of Cook be and is hereby increased from nine, its present number, to twelve. The act further provided that three additional judges of the circuit court be elected on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, 1893, and that the terms of office of said three additional judges of the circuit court should expire on the first Monday of June, 1897, upon the election and qualification of their successors in office, and that upon the first Monday of June, 1897, and every six years thereafter, there should be elected at the same time and in the same manner as other judges of the circuit court, three judges, successors in office of the circuit judges by the act authorized to be elected.

It will thus be seen by the aforesaid acts that by contemporaneous construction of the above section of the constitution by the legislature the terms of office of the additional judges provided for by the aforesaid acts were to expire at the date of election on the first Monday in June of the years of the regular judicial election. Moreover, the legislature, by the different acts passed up to 1893, by positive law fixed the expiration of the terms of all the additional circuit judges of Cook county as the day of the judicial election.

Another law was enacted in 1915 by the same legislature which passed the act under consideration increasing salaries, in consequence of the population of Cook county having increased to over 2,500,000 according to the Federal census of 1910, increasing the number of judges of the circuit court of Cook county from fourteen to twenty. Section 2 of the act provides: "On the first Monday of June in the year 1915, and every six years thereafter the