Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/301

 THE PUBLISHER'S DEPARTMENT Constitutional Law Mr. Stimson's work on the FEDERAL AND STATE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES will be published by the time this is before you. We have alluded to it before in this department, but the work is so important and is treated on such original lines, that we deem it wise to give it even more extended space. We believe that it will prove to be the leading legal treatise of the year. A careful reading of the advance sheets shows to the publishers that it should be read not only by the profession, but should be accessible to students of the subject of civil government. It will be published in one volume, bound in cloth, and will be sold at Sj-5o. It will be divided into three books. Book I will give the origin and growth of the American Constitutions. This portion of the work will contain an introductory chapter tracing the his torical principles f»om Magna Carta, and chapters on the Right to Law, the Right of Liberty, on Chancery and the Injunction Order, the Right to Labor and Trade, and the Right to Property. Book II will contain a chronological table of first appearance of constitutional principles and of Eng lish social legislation. Book III presents a concise statement of all the propositions of all the American State Constitutions in their latest development, including the corre sponding principles of the Federal constitution. General Description

The main subject of the work is that branch of Constitutional law which relates to the liberties of the people, which is the most important part in our Constitution to-day, and the most neglected by historians and in treatises on constitutional law. In our Federal Constitution we have not only to secure these liberties to the individual as against the Federal government, but in some cases against the State governments as well; and our State Constitu tions seek to protect the individual also against the State Legislatures. Treatment of Subject

There are many political treatises in which mat ters relating to government, hitherto deemed most interesting and perhaps most important, have been exhaustively treated; but in no work has attention been concentrated on those constitutional documents which embody_the people's liberties; and in none is the Federal with all the State Constitutions com pared and brought together.

An interesting feature of the work will be that portion wherein the laws, which marked the evolution of constitutional liberty, are abstracted and arranged chronologically, from the Conquest, in 1066, to the Railway Rate Regu lation (Hepburn) Act, in 1906. Historical Digest of Engllsh Social Legislation

"Magna Carta and the other constitutional docu ments are but the record of the victories of the people in the long fight which they waged for their liberties against the Crown; they mark the definite establishment of Anglo-Saxon notions of liberty and law over the feudal or Norman, European, Roman. or Civil Law view, which the Norman kings after the Conquest, and, later, even the Tudors and the Stuarts, endeavored to impose upon the English people." {Introductory,.]

The constitutionalprin ciples protecting personal liberties and private rights, as expressed in constitutional documents from Magna Carta to the United States Constitution, are arranged under subject headings in the order of their appearance. This portion of the work is arranged as follows : Chronological Table

Liberty (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g)

General Right to; Jury Trial. Habeas Corpus and Indictment. Bail and Punishment. Trial and Evidence. Bills of Attainder. Suspending Laws. Treason.