Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/206

 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (History). In the February American Political Science Review (V. i, p. 200) appears one of a series of studies of our state constitutions entitled " General Tendencies in State Constitutions," by James Quayle Dealey, which begins as follows: "Throughout classical and medieval phil osophizing runs a theory of a paramount or fundamental law, permanent in kind, because fixed in nature. This theory in its modern form, after voicing itself for a time in the Cromwellian period, came to the front in the Ameri can Revolution and found its proper expression in the written constitution. In our Federal system, owing to the rigidity of the national Constitution, the development of that docu ment must be traced in the varying decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the Commonwealths a more flexible system of amendment prevails, and for that reason changes in what the states consider to be their fundamental law, may be traced more easily in the constitutions themselves, subject as they are to frequent revision and amendment. "In the Revolutionary period these consti tutions were few in number, small in size, and contained a mere framework of governmental organization, now they are filled with details, so petty in many instances as hardly worthy even to be dignified as statutory. "In conclusion, attention may well be called to the practical disappearance from our con stitutions of some old-time provisions. Among these may be mentioned the annual election, and the annual session, the governor's council, and unequal representation of the people in law-making bodies, the life tenure of judges, and the advisory capacity of the Supreme Court. Religious restrictions on office-hold ing, and the property qualification for suffrage, with very slight exceptions, have gone; the town system of New England is dying in that section and does not exist outside of it. The real local units of administration now are, (1) the rural county w-ith its numerous subdivi sions, and (2) the incorporated city, both of which are gaining power throughout the United States. "If general tendencies in the making of con stitutions may be corulensed into a sentence, we may say that governmental powers are centering in the electorate, which voices itself through the ballot and the convention."

183

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Income Tax). "The Income Tax and the Constitution," by Edward B. Whitney, Harvard Law Review (V. xx, p. 280). CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (Judicial Power). With an article entitled " Judicial Dispensation from Congressional Statutes," in the American Law Review (V. lxi, p. 65). William Trickett re-enforces his former argument that the power of the United States Supreme Court to declare statutes unconstitutional was " a great usurpation," and entirely unintended by the framers of the Constitution. William M. Meigs has vigorously attacked this position in an article noted in the December Green" Bag, and the present paper is an equally sharp reply, concluding with the statement " that, if the courts possess the power to declare acts of Congress void, they owe it, not to the intention of the makers of the Constitution, but to what Chief Justice Gibson has termed ' necessity ' which seems to be another name for their own desire." CORPORATIONS. " The Abuse of the Corporation Charter," by Don. E. Mowry, Central Law Journal (V. Ixiv, p. 49). CORPORATIONS (Stock). " It is quite apparent that there are some features of our corporate system which require re-adjustment, if not abandonment," says Frederick Dwight in the February Yale Law Journal (V. xvi, p. 247), in an article on " The Par Value of Stock." The practice of requiring a " par" or face value for every share of stock seems to him unnecessary and now in many cases harmful. "Of course, if, as is the case with ' monied ' corporations, the entire capital had to be paid by the stock subscribers in cash, and thereafter maintained intact as a permanent and undi minished fund above all debts, there would be some justification for establishing a. par value. Bvit as stock may now be issued for money, labor performed, or property, and, in the absence of fraud, no question may be raised as to the actual value of the labor or property by which the payment is made, the gateway has been opened for the most astound ing inflation. . . . The par value, conse quently, has become little more than an ^ attempt to create the semblance of value by the activity of the printing press. . . . That