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Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Book Reviews, Edwin W. Patterson, Edson R. Sunderland, C E. Griffin

Michigan Law Review

The title of this brilliant little volume might, more accurately, have been, "The Spirits of the Common Law," for it depicts the common law as the battleground of many conflicting spirits, from which a few relatively permanent ideas and ideals have emerged triumphant. As a whole, the book is a pluralistic-idealistic interpretation of legal history. Idealistic, because Dean Pound finds that the fundamentals of the 'common law have been shaped by ideas and ideals rather than by economic determinism or class struggle; he definitely rejects a purely economic interpretation of legal history, although he demands a sociological one (pp. io-ii). …

Book Reviews, Nathan Isaacs, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, Arthur H. Basye, Leonard D. White, Victor H. Lane, Edwin D. Dickinson

Michigan Law Review

What does a judge do when he decides a case? It would be interesting to collect the answers ranging from those furnished by primitive systems of law in which the judge was supposed to consult the gods to the ultra-modern, rather profane system described to me recently by a retrospective judge: "I make up my mind which way the case ought to be decided, and then I see if I can't get some legal ground to make it stick." Perhaps the widespread impression is the curiously erroneous one lampooned by Gnaeus Flavius (Kantorowitz). The judge is supposed to sit at …

The Constitution And Nationalism, Henry M. Bates

Articles

Dean Bates comments on the alarming trend of nationalism in America: "Blind indeed must he be who supposes that our legal and political institutions can escape profound modification by those great changes in commercial, industrial, political and social conditions which, in part, were caused by the world war, but were greatly intensified by it.... No intelligent person, who has any knowledge of history and of the protection which local government has always given to human freedom, can fail to feel a deep and at times shuddering sense of apprehension at the rapidity with which we are massing our governmental power …

English Judicature Act Of 1873, Willis B. Perkins

Michigan Law Review

It seems to be the general impression that reform in judicial procedure is a new and radical thing in the history of jurisprudence. This is far from the fact. It is as old as jurisprudence itself. From Solon to Justinian, from Justinian to the Magna Charta, from the Magna Charta to Bentham, from Bentham to Field, and in every civilized country, radical changes have taken place from time to time, touching both procedure and substantive law. Court systems have been codified, systematized and rearranged to meet advancing and changing social and industrial conditions. From the religious ceremonies, constituting the methods …

Corporations And Express Trusts As Business Organizations, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

Articles

PRESIDENT BUTLER of Columbia University is reported to have said in an address before the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1911, that "the limited liability corporation is the greatest single discovery of modem times, whether you judge it by its social, by its ethical, by its industrial, or, in the long run--after we understand it and know how to use it,--by its political, effects." 1

Materials Of Jurisprudence, James V. Campbell

Articles

This period is marked by rather more strenuous efforts than have been made before in this country, to solve the problem of condensing and simplifying the law. Our own day is peculiar in the endeavors we have seen to evolve what is claimed to be a science of jurisprudence. Some admirable writers have succeeded in dividing the domain of law into its larger or smaller fields, and have shown with more or less fulness the relative positions of these, and their mutual dependence. This is a valuable service; for all lawyers know that, without a reasonably clear perception of the …

Journal Of David Mcdonald, David Mcdonald

Historic Documents

Handwritten journal of David McDonald who is recognized as the first Professor of Law at Indiana University. The journal is undated but contains a transcribed article from the Cincinnati Gazette dated April 17, 1865.

McDonald was born in Millersburg, Kentucky and moved to Indiana when he was 14, in 1817. He eventually became a school teacher in Washington, before meeting a local lawyer who encouraged him to study law. He was licensed to practice in the Circuit Courts in 1830. He served as a member of the Indiana Legislature (1833-34) as well as being elected judge of the 10th Circuit …

Reports Of Cases Adjudged In The Supreme Court Of The Province Of New Brunswick, George F S Berton

Thompson Rare Book Collection

Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the Province of New Brunswick: Commencing in Hilary Term, 1835, written by George F. S. Berton in 1835 is a 217 page compilation of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of New Brunswick. It includes an index and the option to full-text search.

Preface:

At the date of the commencement of these Reports, I was in­duced by a desire to render service to my professional brethren and the public, to publish the notes, which I had taken only for my own use, of the cases in Hilary, 1835. …