Transcriber’s Note
Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.
The
Essentials of American
Constitutional Law
By
Francis Newton Thorpe, Ph.D. LL.D.
(Of the Pennsylvania Bar)
Professor of Political Science and Constitutional Law
University of Pittsburgh
“It is a Constitution we are expounding.”—John Marshall
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
Copyright, 1917
BY
FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE
Made in the United States of America
* AD * JUVENES *
* LEGUM * STUDIOSOS *
* QUANDO *
* ADVOCATOS * JUDICES *
* LEGISLATORES *
* HODIE *
* ANNORUM * AMICOS *
* HIC * LIBELLUS *
* DEDICATUS *
v
PREFACE
The principles of American constitutional laware the foundation of all judicial decisions, and it is(as Marshall observes) “the province and duty ofthe Courts to say what the law is.” Judicialdecisions, however, are technical, are handed downby experts, and set forth authoritatively as resultsof experience which the junior student of the lawis likely to find difficult, if not incomprehensible.But to attempt merely to simplify the law, or itsinterpretation by the Courts, is likely to result invariation from the original spirit and purpose of thelaw: because decisions are essentially a reduction ofquestions at issue to a principle, and laws themselvesare (or ought to be) simple, clear, comprehensive,and complete.
For purposes of study or instruction it is necessaryto bring the principle involved in a law (be it theSupreme Law of the Land,—that is, the Constitution,a Treaty, or an Act of Congress; or a State Constitution,or an Act of a State Legislature) within thecompass of a principle, or a fundamental, by examinationviof an issue, or issues, in which the principle isinvolved. There must ever be before the Courtthe issue and the law, and the law itself may be anissue, in the American system of government whichrecognizes the authority of the Court to pass on theconstitutionality of the law.
But principles are not numerous. Possibly inNature there is but one basic principle and all ourso-called “natural laws” are but aspects of thatprinciple as the human mind conceives or recognizesit. The analogy in government permits the assertionthat the principles of constitutional law arefew. Possibly they are severally aspects of oneprinciple: that of sovereignty. To the student ofthe law, especially to junior students, principles arematters of memory rather than of understanding.It is a vigorous and essentially mature mind thatcan reduce a complex issue to such simple form as todeduce the principle on which it rests.
Books on American constitutional law should besimple, comprehensive, authoritative, and speciallyadapted to the conditions under which the subjectis pursued. In later years the subject is usuallyapproached through two books: a treatise on constitutionallaw, and a book