Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/703

 THE PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT THE INJUNCTION ORDER.

STIMSON.

The 'use of the injunction to quell disorder or control the action of large bodies of men, with the vigorous use of contempt process, stirs public opinion to-day.

PRIMARILY VALUABLE

It was used in early times to quell disorder; but its use to control the actions of bodies of men in labor disputes may be said to date from 1868.

AS A

BOOK OF REFERENCE. The lawyer, the journalist, men profes sionally engaged in political life, and others who have occasion to acquaint themselves with the details of American constitutional law will find this book a j valuable aid in their study.

PERSONAL LIBERTY. Curiously, none of the books, heretofore pub lished on this subject, has given more than passing notice to that phase of the constitution having to do with PERSONAL LIBERTY, while the state consti tutions have never been systematically treated. Upon this neglected field Professor Stimson has now entered.

DIVISION OF POWER. The division of power between the federal and state governments is one of the most important of the original features, and one that is fixed on such definite principles that the poet's "twilight land" exists only in the uninformed imagination. The fundamental line of division is that the federal powers are almost exclusively political, the state powers domestic and social.

Bearing in mind firmly the principle that the English law sounds only in damages, and that the notion of ordering or even forbidding any act (except under a criminal statute) is utterly foreign to its system; and the cardinal principle that no fact can be found without the intervention of the petit jury; we shall be able to understand both the historical reason and the present meaning of the objection of the American people to the injunctive powers of chancery and ex parte sentences for contempt. The objection to the abuse of the injunction is sound, and this in our country because it tends to make the courts no longer judicial but in effect part of the Executive branch of the government. This is the sense of the popular phrase "government by injunction."

THE RIGHT TO LABOR AND TRADE. The frequent enactment of acts against trusts, monopolies, or contracts in restraint of trade, both State and Federal, shows that our Legislatures, if not our Bench and Bar, must have substantially forgotten the body of the common law. For the broader understanding of the libertyright involves as well the liberty of life and person, the liberty to support life and family. The extent of this right is the matter most discussed to-day. There is probably no constitutional principle more often invaded by modern statutes than is this. The constitutional freedom of labor and trade involves matters commonly invaded by modern statutes.