A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations

............................................................................................................................
Description
IF the following work shall furnish to the practitioner and the student in the law such a presentation of elementary constitutional principles as shall serve, with the aid of its references to judicial decisions, legal treatises, and historical events, as a convenient guide in the examination of questions respecting the constitution- al limitations which rest upon the power of the several State legis- latures, the purpose of its preparation will be fully accomplished. The need of some work bringing together those principles in a manner that would enable them to be examined as a comprehen- sive system, and their relative bearing and influence considered, has, it is believed, been quite generally felt; and, in view of the rapid multiplication of judicial decisions upon points of constitu- tional law, was daily becoming more urgent. The valuable treat- ises of Mr. Smith and Mr. Sedgwick were very complete and satisfactory on the points which they undertook to cover by their discussions; but the plan which each of them marked out for his labors excluded from examination many of the topics here pre- sented, while others were but incidentally alluded to by them, and still others have acquired their importance in a considerable de- gree from subsequent events or decisions. Valuable as those treatises are, therefore, they do not so completely cover the ground of State constitutional law as to make a work specially devoted to that subject unimportant, and the present work is submitted to the profession, rather as supplementary to their labors than as a
substitute for them.
............................................................................................................................
Contents
Chapter I. Definitions
Chapter II. The Constitution of the United States
Chapter III. The Formation and Amendment of State Constitutions
Chapter IV. Construction of State Constitutions
Chapter V. The Powers which the legislative Department may Exeroise
Chapter VI. The Enactment of Laws
Chapter VII. The Circumstances under which a Legislative Act may be Declared Unconstitutional
Chapter VIII. The Several Grades of Municipal Government
Chapter IX. Protection to Person and Property under the Constitution of the United States
Chapter X. The Constitutional Protections to Personal Liberty
Chapter XI. Of the Protection of Property by the Law of the Land
Chapter XII. Liberty of Speech and of the Press
Chapter XIII. Religious Liberty
Chapter XIV. The Power of Taxation
Chapter XV. The Eminent Domain
Chapter XVI. The Police Power of the States
Chapter XVII. The Expression of the Popular Will
......................................................................................................................
Author Details
Thomas M. Cooley