Constitutional Law Commons^™

Statutes- Constitutional Law - Legislative Action At Special Session Limited By Governor's Message

Michigan Law Review

At a special session called by the executive to consider, among other matters, a bill "providing for the validation of bonds issued by a municipality under sufficient popular vote regardless of technical requirements," the legislature enacted a statute permitting validation of bonds even when issued without legal power, and the bill was approved by the governor. Pursuant to the statute, the common council of Detroit, in order to refund the city's bonded debt, approved the validity of the old obligations of the municipality, and petitioned for a writ of mandamus to compel the city controller to issue the refunding bonds …

The Delegation Of Federal Legislative Power To Executive Officials, Theodore W. Cousens

Michigan Law Review

It will be the purpose of this article to attempt (1) a chronological survey of the previous Supreme Court cases relating to alleged delegations of legislative power, and (2) an analysis and discussion of the Panama Refining Co. decision in the light of this background. No discrimination is made between delegations of state and of federal legislative power, as the Supreme Court makes no such discrimination.

Judicial Method And The Constitutionality Of The N.I.R.A., Ralph F. Fuchs

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law - New Deal Legislation - Gold Hoarding Statute

Michigan Law Review

Two cases involving acts of Congress passed in March 1933 to prevent the hoarding of gold' were denied a review by the United States Supreme Court on October 8. Both of these cases involved the same facts. Plaintiff had delivered certain gold bars to a bank for safe-keeping. Later the bank notified him that, pursuant to an executive order by the President of the United States, it would have to surrender the gold. Immediately the plaintiff demanded the return of the bullion, which demand was refused, and he filed bills for specific performance of the bailment contract against the bank …

Constitutional Law - Moratory Legislation

Michigan Law Review

A Minnesota statute, in view of the economic emergency, provided, among other things, that courts might, upon petition of a mortgagor, extend the period of redemption from mortgage foreclosure sales for a definite time not beyond May 1, 1935. If a court took such action, the mortgagor was to remain in possession of the premises and pay a reasonable rental to the mortgagee. Held, by the United States Supreme Court in a five-to-four decision, that this statute did not violate the contracts, or due process, or equal protection clauses of the Constitution. Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell …

Constitutional Limitations On Legislative Procedure In West Virginia, Frank E. Horack Jr.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutionality Of Non-Voting Stock, Jack C. Burdett

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law - The Delegation Of Federal Legislative Power To Executive Or Administrative Agencies

Michigan Law Review

The range of governmental activity, ever expanding both because of the adoption of new functions and because of the increase in proportions of the old, has developed a frequent need for supervision by specialized administrative agencies. In addition to the normal trend toward increased administrative control, present-day economic difficulties have provided additional impetus in that direction. Hence the question of how far Congress can go in turning over its duties to executive or administrative agencies has become of immediate and vital concern.

Appeal And Error-Raising Constitutionality Of A Statute In Criminal Cases

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Limitations On Legislative Procedure In West Virginia, Frank Edward Horack Jr.

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Constitutionality Of The Recovery Program, Ralph F. Fuchs

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Constitución, Mario Díaz Cruz

Index of Cuban Law and Jurisprudence / Indice a la Legislación y Jurisprudencia Cubana

[Constitution (1940)]. Inconstitucionalidad.

Ley No. 7, mayo 21, 1949, Tribunal de Garantías Constitucionales y Sociales.

Banks And Banking Under The Indiana Constitution And Statutes, Charles M. Reed

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

When Is A Treaty Self-Executing, Leslie Henry

Michigan Law Review

A self-executing treaty is a treaty which of its own force furishes a rule of municipal law for the guidance of municipal courts in deciding cases involving the rights of individuals.

Ordinarily treaties are simply agreements or contracts between two or more sovereignties, obligating them to carry out the mutual promises contained therein. But under our Constitution a treaty is of greater force. It may operate as a law, just like an act of Congress. But the constitutional provision is not mandatory. Not every treaty provision is necessarily a law. For example, a promise to secure the passage of legislation …

Liberty And The Police Power, Clarence Emmett Manion

Journal Articles

The American citizen now has practically no rights of person or property that neither Congress nor the State legislature may not impair by legislation. The adoption of the Articles of Confederation and the Federal Constitution served merely to transfer to the Federal government certain powers formerly exercised by the individual States. When all individuals were protected in the exercise of their respective rights it was never supposed that the rights of the individual were to be protected or approached through the avenues of legislation dictated by majority opinions as to what is now and again for the "general good". The …

Constitutional Law-Partial Unconstitutionality Of Statutes-Effect Of Saving Clause On General Rules Of Construction

Michigan Law Review

In recent legislation it has become fairly common to incorporate so-called "saving" clauses or sections. In effect, these usually state with variations in phraseology, that the adjudication of invalidity of any part of the act shall not affect the validity of the balance or any of the remaining parts of the act and, in some instances in addition, that notwithstanding a portion of the act is declared objectionable, the legislature would have passed the residue of the statute or any of its parts or that the remaining portions or any part thereof shall be enforced without reference to that invalidated.

Police Legislation Under Federal Powers

Michigan Law Review

A recent case decided by the United States Supreme Court United States v. Daugherty (Jan. 4, 1926) 46 Su. Ct. 156 (Adv. Opn. 303) sustained a conviction and sentence under the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act, 38 Stat. 785, for "making unauthorized sales of cocaine to three different persons on different days" The indictment was in three counts, one covering each sale involved. The sentence imposed was "five years on each of said three counts. * * * * Said term of imprisonment to run consecutively and not concurrently."

Congress And The Supreme Court, Thomas Frank Konop

Journal Articles

In 1924, Plank Five of the Platform of the Independent candidate for President proposed a constitutional amendment that would enable Congress to override judicial review by reenacting a statute. Such an amendment would, of course, run in stark contrast to Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in Marbury v. Madison. This paper explores nature of this proposed amendment and analyzes the implications of overturning the foundation of judicial power in our tripartite system of government. In sum, the author suggests that judicial review serves as an excellent check on Congress and the temporary passions of the public itself.

Legislation In Vague Or General Terms, Ralph W. Aigler

Michigan Law Review

For some reason, probably in part the increasing complexity of our life and relationships, but more largely, perhaps, the growing tendency to regulate everybody and everything by positive law, the courts have been called upon with increasing frequency to pass upon the effectiveness of statutes and ordinances phrased in indefinite terms. In a very interesting and valuable paper, Professor Freund has pointed out the weakness and strength, on the one hand, of legislation in general terms, and on the other hand, legislation in which the rule of conduct is attempted to be laid down with precision. His interest apparently lay …

Note And Comment, Edgar N. Durfee, Cyril E. Bailey, Edwin B. Stason, William C. O'Keefe, Clyde Y. Morris

Michigan Law Review

The Basis of Relief from Penalties and Forfeitures - The equitable principle of relief from penalties and forfeitures is so far elementary as almost to defy analysis. Many, perhaps most, of the judicial explanations of the principle have based it upon interpretation or construction, appealing to the doctrine that equity regards intent rather than form. Yet a logical application of this doctrine would lead to results very different from those which have actually been arrived at in the decisions. Thus, a stipulation in a mortgage that the mortgagor waives his equity of redemption can hardly be interpreted as meaning that …

Indemnity Act Of 1863 A Study In The War-Time Immunity Of Governmental Officers, James G. Randall

Michigan Law Review

One of the familiar measures of the Union administration during the Civil War was the suspension of the habeas corpus privilege and the consequent subjection of civilians to military authority. The essential irregularity of such a situation in American law is especially conspicuous when one considers its inevitable sequel-namely, the protection of military and civil officers from such prosecution as would normally follow invasion of private rights and actual injury of persons and property. Such protection was supplied by a bill of indemnity passed in 1863, and this law, with its amendment of i866, forms a significant chapter in the …

Methods For Relieving Courts Of Last Resort From The Growing Burden Of Appeals, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

"At the last meeting of the Michigan State Bar Association, held in Detroit in June, 1920, the question of employing an intermediate appellate court in this state, as a means for relieving the Supreme Court and expediting the disposal of appeals, was discussed at some length, and it was thereupon moved and carried that the whole subject be referred to the Committee on Legislation and Law Reform to be investigated, and that the Committee report upon the matter at the next meeting of the Association."

Supreme Court's Construction Of The Federal Constitution In 1920-1921, Thomas Reed Powell

Michigan Law Review

While the Constitution does not in terms forbid the United States, as it forbids the states, to pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts, the principle has become established that contracts made by the United States may create rights of which individuals may not be divested. This principle is attached to the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against depriving any person of property without due process of law. In applying this principle, United States v. Northern Pacific Ry. Co.2 held that a grant of land to a railroad to induce its construction is a contract, and that provisions for substituting indemnity …

Growth And Development Of The Police Power Of The State, Collins Denny Jr

Michigan Law Review

The police power of the state is one of the most difficult phases of our law to understand, and it is even more difficult to define it and to place it within any bounds. In speaking of this power the court has recently said: "It extends not only to regulations which promote the public health, morals, and safety, but to those which promote the public convenience or the general prosperity. * * * It is the most essential of powers, at times the most insistent, and always one of the least limitable of the powers of government."' The term is …

Constitutional Law In 1919-1920, Iii, Thomas Reed Powell

Michigan Law Review

Five of the corporations which fought in vain against exercises of the police power profited nothing from their grasp at the obligation-of-contracts clause. In Milwaukee Electric Ry. & Light Co. v. Wisconsin2 the contract relied on was a clause in the charter of a street railroad imposing on it the duty to keep the space between and near its tracks in good repair "with the same material as the city shall have last used to pave or repave these spaces and the street previous to such repairs, unless the railway company and the board of public works of said city …

The Newberry Case, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Senator Newberry of Michigan and sixteen others were convicted in the United States District Court on the charge that they "unlawfully and feloniously did conspire, combine, confederate, and agree together to commit the offense [in the Newberry indictment] on his part of wilfully violating the act of Congress approved June 25, 1910, as amended, by giving, contributing, expending, and using and by causing to be given, contributed, expended and used in procuring his nomination and election at said primary and general elections, a greater sum than the laws of Michigan permitted and above ten thousand dollars," etc. The Act of …

Tyranny Of The Taxing Power, Andrew A. Bruce

Michigan Law Review

It has been frequently stated that our constitutions and our courts were made and organized for the protection of capital and of the vested interests. If this be the case, they are manifestly inadequate for their purpose, and the danger of the future is not that capital will be too much protected but that the reckless extravagance of today will continue and be increased, and that our representatives in our city councils, our state legislatures, and our national congress, who depend for their elections upon the votes of the majority who have accumulated little or nothing, will more and more …

Constitutional Law - War Powers Of Congress (Validity Of Conscription Act), Francis Joseph Vurpillat

Journal Articles

This paper was read before The Round Table of South Bend, Indiana, and before the classes in constitutional law prior to the rendition of the decision by the United States Supreme Court, sustaining the Conscription Act. The paper is here presented in its original form, by request, on account of its controversial character and legal-brief style, the subject-matter of constitutional law and war powers being ever new to students of the law.

Religious Liberty In The American Law, Carl Zollman

Michigan Law Review

It remains to examine the application of this principle* to particu- 1 lar offenses. Statutes have been passed against blasphemy and offenders have been prosecuted under them. This, as said in a Massachusetts case, has not been done "to prevent or restrain the formation of any opinions or the profession of any religious sentiments whatever but to restrain and punish acts which have a tendency to disturb the public peace.185 To prohibit the open, public, and explicit denial of the-popular religion of a country is a necessary measure to preserve the tranquility of a government. Of this no person in …

Federal Incorporation, Myron W. Watkins

Michigan Law Review

Since the beginning of our national history the Constitution, which is essentially the source of the law rather than its framework, has with more or less promptitude fulfilled the function of sanctioning new rules of action which will permit a fairly symmetrical institutional development in the face of the changing conditions of the environment in which the people live and think and act. Always the habits of the people are changing, always the situation facts are being modified, and the Constitution in its widest and truest meaning but provides the means whereby thru this flux the body of the people …