A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations which Rest Upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union

Thomas McIntyre Cooley

The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 1998 - History - 886 pages

Reprint of the fifth edition, the final authorial edition of Cooley's most important work. It went through six editions by 1890 and was cited more often that any other legal text in the late nineteenth century. This classic legal commentary on the Constitution examines the construction of state constitutions and the enactment of laws and "ranks with Story among the foremost commentators on the Constitution." Walker, Oxford Companion to Law 288. Originally published: Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1883.

Contents

• Suspension of general laws: xxxiii
• Equality the aim of the: xxxix
• What constitutes jurisdiction: xlviii
• Qualifications for office: lvi
• Consent cannot confer: lxxix
• Necessity for process: 8
• Restrictions upon the States: 11
• CHAPTER III: 29
• Common law in force what it consists: 44
• 3948: 53
• Who first to construe constitutions: 59
• Construction to be uniform: 67
• Common law to be kept in view: 73
• THE POWERS WHICH THE LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT MAY EXERCISE: 103
• Declaratory statutes: 111
• Legislative divorces: 130
• Legislative power not to be delegated: 139
• Local option laws: 148
• CHAPTER VI: 156
• Contempts: 160
• Amendatory statutes: 181
• Process by publication: 191
• CHAPTER VII: 192
• Extent of legislative power: 198
• 4: 200
• Legislative forms are limitations of power: 211
• Davis: 214
• Bourne: 216
• Constitutional objection may be waived: 218
• Judicial power not to be delegated: 221
• Inquiry into legislative motives not permitted: 224
• Other regulations: 227
• State constitutions framed in reference to: 228
• Strict construction of charters: 234
• Meetings and adjournments: 236
• Municipal bylaws: 240
• Powers to be construed with reference to purposes of their crea: 249
• Authority confined to corporate limits: 255
• Implied powers: 258
• Contested elections rules of proceeding punishing disorderly: 278
• Municipal military bounties: 284
• Towns and counties: 295
• Not liable for neglect of official duty: 302
• Huntsville: 304
• The State sometimes estopped from questioning: 311
• Ex post facto laws: 321
• Laws impairing the obligation of contracts: 331
• What charters are contracts: 345
• CHAPTER: 360
• Excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishments: 402
• Protection of professional confidence: 409
• Legal restraints upon personal liberty: 417
• Right to discussion and petition: 427
• CHAPTER L: 430
• Cooke: 438
• Vested rights not to be disturbed: 439
• Vested rights of action are protected: 445
• Statutes of limitation: 451
• Hamer: 453
• Consequential injuries from changes in the laws: 475
• THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES: 512
• Secret sessions of public bodies in United States: 518
• Cases of privileged communications: 525
• Further cases of privilege criticism of officers or candidates: 532
• Aldrich: 538
• What the United States government the successor of Colonial con: 550
• Accounts of judicial proceedings how far protected: 556
• Publication of legislative proceedings: 567
• CHAPTER XIII: 576
• Does not preclude recognition of superintending Providence: 582
• Sumptuary and other like laws: 589
• THE EMINENT DOMAIN: 647
• Legislative authority requisite to its exercise: 653
• Question of is one of: 669
• THE POLICE POWER OF THE STATES: 705
• Payment of license fee to United States gives no right in oppo: 721
• Regulation of highways by the States: 727
• Regulation of speed of vessels: 733
• Power of States to make breach thereof a crime: 745
• Exemption of State agencies from national taxation: 747
• Limitations on State taxation by national Constitution: 754
• THE EXPRESSION OF THE POPULAR WILL: 755
• Preliminary action by authorities notice proclamation: 759
• Purposes must be public: 760
• Parol explanations by voter inadmissible: 765
• Freedom of elections bribery: 771
• People possessed of the sovereignty but can only exercise: 776
• Electors oath when conclusive: 785
• federacies: 788
• The States never in a strict sense sovereign: 794
• Addition of by amendments to national Constitution: 798
• Adoption of the Constitution by North Carolina Rhode Island: 805
• Effect of irregularities: 817
• Consequential injuries do: 818
• 365369: 824
• Quartering soldiers in private houses: 858
• Prisoner standing mute: 872
• Extradition of fugitives from justice: 876
• To be public: 880

Popular passages

Page 11 - 1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States. But all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. 2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States. 3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations

Page 10 - The Constitution in all its provisions looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States." 2 The government of the United States is one of enumerated powers; the national Constitution being the instrument which specifies them, and in which authority should be found for the exercise of any power which the national government assumes to possess.

Page 12 - of Congress, become the seat of government of the United States ; and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings. 17.

Page 11 - 4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy, throughout the United States. 5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures. 6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States. 7. To establish post-offices and post-roads.

About the author

THOMAS MCINTYRE COOLEY [1824-1898] was the most important American jurist of the late-nineteenth century. For twenty years he served as the leading justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. He was appointed by President Grover Cleveland to serve on the Interstate Commerce Commission, where he was the leading commissioner and set several important precedents for administrative process. He taught at Johns Hopkins University and was dean of the University of Michigan Law School. First issued in 1870, his edition of Blackstone, popularly known as "Cooley's Blackstone," was the standard American edition of the late nineteenth century. Some of his other works include A Treatise on the Law of Taxation (1876) and A Treatise on the Law of Torts (1878). Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, founded in 1972, was named in his honor.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations which Rest Upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union
• Author: Thomas McIntyre Cooley
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 1998
• ISBN: 1886363536, 9781886363533
• Length: 886 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / 19th Century; Law / Constitutional; Political Science / American Government / State; Political Science / Constitutions; Political Science / History & Theory