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THE GREEN BAG

grown the idea of essential individualism with it will be done for them. This frank state ment is not, as I conceive it, a threat, at least which our constitutions are impregnated, and not a declaration of any imperious purpose to the great idea of building up a competent disregard the law or arrogantly to sweep state federal republic,' not on opportunism or a rights into the muck heap. It is an honest, temporary view of justice, but on law?" clear-headed avowal of a very evident social CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Suits Against truth: state negligence, state incompetence, States). In the May-June American Law state selfishness will not be permitted to stand Review, William Trickett writes on " Suits in the way of overpowering national desire Against States by Individuals in the Federal and a demanding national conscience; to say Courts " (V. xii, p. 364). His conclusion is: so is only to speak plainly what students of "A survey of the cases, and of the reason history know. The preservation of state ings of the courts too painfully discloses the rights depends, as ever, on the performance of * absence of a clear and definite criterion for state duties." deciding when a suit is to be deemed a suit The author fully recognizes that if in our against a state. It need not be named as efforts to secure what we now regard as right defendant. Its agents or officers may be so we go beyond the powers granted to the far identified with it that a suit against them national government " we shall consciously will be virtually a suit against it. Whether give up the idea of a law-abiding state and they are or not, ought not to depend on their enter once again upon a government of men dignity. There is no valid reason for saying that the governor is the state any more than and not of law. ... If the Federal govern ment can under pressure reach beyond its that the other officers or agents are. The legal competence to do things for the state, nature of the right contested is a better test. there cannot in logic be an end; the very If the state will be deprived of the possession framework of. government itself may be of property which it holds through the de warped and broken under the pressure of fendant, if the plaintiff prevails; if a state opportunism and exigency. It is easy enough statute will be explicitly declared null and its to argue that a president can go beyond his execution by the appropriate officer arrested, constitutional limits because he can act more if the plaintiff is to succeed, the suit is prac expeditiously than a cumbersome congress. tically a suit against the state. But neither Even now, at least one able, influential, and these criteria, nor any other, can be found thoughtful journal (I do not mention the consistently enforced in the decisions." hair-brained variety) is demanding " central CONTRACTS. " Commentaries on the Law ized democracy," which is a euphemism for of Contracts," by Joel Prentiss Bishop, second consolidated government and centralized edition by Marion C. Early, T. H. Flood & Co., authority. But from the highest point of Chicago, 1907. A new edition of this stand view, can there be any greater danger than ard work will be welcomed by the profession, the conscious breach of confining law, unless though since it does not purport to be an it arises from the hypocritical pretense of exhaustive digest it less quickly becomes obso regard for law, while one is consciously going lete. The alterations that have been made in beyond its limits? Have we reached that this edition have been chiefly under the sub stage in our fretting against the bars of legal ject of illegal contracts and contracts in federalism? restraint of trade. The new work is admirably indexed, and cross-references to unofficial re "It is strange. . . that the two funda mentals that were striven for so long, the two ports have been added where possible. The most recent decisions illustrative of principles great ideas which were embedded in our con stitutions, and which appeared to make them have been added to the citations. It is refreshing in this age of prolixity in law writ the lasting resting place of permanent prin ciples, the product of centuries of discussion ing to take up again a work whose author set and combat, are now in especial peril. To before him as his ideal brevity of expression. CONVEYANCING. "The Registration of say the least, we are looking at them critically and pondering their value. Have we out Title in Scotland," by H. W. Gibson, the Law