Law Commons^™

Paths To Constitutional Home Rule For Municipalities, Wallace Mendelson

Vanderbilt Law Review

A basic American tradition is that problems which are national in scope (i.e., which "affect more states than one") shall be handled by the national government, while problems of merely state-wide concern are left for state government. Municipal home rule is the application of this basic principal in the relationship of the state to its towns and cities. To put the matter in the most simple and direct terms--nothing should be done at the national level that can be done efficiently by the states and nothing should be handled at the state level that can be dealt with effectively by …

The Law Of Burial Insurance, Charles T. Cady

Vanderbilt Law Review

Burial insurance, used in the sense of a risk-shifting device to aid the less fortunate, has existed in the form of friendly societies from time immemorial. Indeed, it is probable that this noncommercial type was the first form of insurance. There is some evidence that such societies existed in Egypt, 2500 B.C. There exists more concrete evidence that they thrived in ancient China, India, Greece and Rome. The Grecian societies, although largely religious and ritualistic, had as their main function the guarantee of a decent burial for their members. The existence around A.D. 117-138 of Roman societies, called collegia, is …

County Home Rule In Tennessee, Henry N. Williams

Vanderbilt Law Review

The present Tennessee Constitution as interpreted by the courts permits the legislature to grant to the governing boards of counties a considerable amount of power to determine and regulate matters which are of local concern. There is no reason to doubt that the legislature could authorize county governing boards great freedom in determining the form and organization of county government. Thus the General Assembly could go far in establishing county home rule in Tennessee.

The chief difficulty in relying on the General Assembly's granting considerable authority under the existing constitutional provision to the governing boards of the counties to determine …

State Statutes And The Full Faith And Credit Clause -- Hughes V. Fetter, Jay A. Hanover

Vanderbilt Law Review

The full faith and credit clause of the Constitution' has commonly been regarded as concerned only with the enforcement of foreign judgments between the states of the Union. The numerous cases which have come before the Supreme Court have dealt almost exclusively with the "judicial Proceedings" phrase of the clause, while the words "public Acts" and "Records" have been, for the most part, left untapped as a source of decisional law. It has only been in recent years that the Supreme Court has broadened its approach by applying the full faith and credit clause to the legislative acts of the …