Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/404

 394 Revieius of Books of Magna Carta, the colonial Charter of Liberties and Privileges, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of the United States, and the four state constitutions with their amendments up to 1904. These are followed by a detailed constitutional history of the colony and a description of the state constitutions of 1777 and 1821. Volume II. describes the convention and constitution of 1846, the convention of 1867, the commissions of 1872 and 1890, and the amendments from 1822 to 1894; the third volume, the convention and constitution of 1894 with the subsequent amendments, including those adopted in 1905. These three volumes contain also much valuable information as to legislation and bills affecting cognate subjects. But they cite very few decisions of the courts. These are described in volume IV., which is devoted to the constitution as now in force, including the amendments of 1905, with notes of the decisions and commentaries upon certain provisions. The fifth and last consists of tables of statutes which the courts have held to be constitutional, and of such as courts have held to be repugnant to the constitution, separately arranged, chronologically and by topics ; a table of the cases cited; an index of persons; and a general index. In a review of a work for which the profession and scholars are so much indebted, it seems ungracious to dwell upon its few defects. But the following suggestions may perhaps aid in the preparation of the next edition. The absence of cross-references to earlier and later pages imposes much needless labor. Except in the case of law reports and session laws, there are hardly any citations of the original authorities, not even of the pages of the convention reports, from which quotations are made. This faulty practice has increased of late among small his- torians. It always tends to cast a reflection lipon the accuracy of an author, and to impair the weight of his book as an authority. The trans- lation of Magna Carta, the Federal Constitution, the Articles of Con- federation, and some of the speeches at the convention of 1894 are super- fluous. There is no reason why more space should be given to that convention than to the more important one which framed the constitu- tion of 1846. There is no explanation of the reasons for the refusal by the people to ratify the constitution proposed in 1867. It would have been beneficial to insert references to the constitutions of other states from which some provisions were copied in New York; and to those that have copied many parts of the New York constitution. It is surprising that, although there is a short account of the codifica- tion of the state laws, and a reference to the subsequent statutory re- vision, the early Revised Statutes of 1830 are only mentioned as an incident in the life of Henry Wheaton, with no description nor even a reference to the important changes made by them in the law of real estate and trusts ; that David Dudley Field, the father of American codi- fication, is not named; and that the fusion of law and equity, first made by liim in New York and copied from his bills almost everywhere that tlie common law prevails, is not described.