Legal History Commons^™

The Establishment Of Judicial Review (I), Edwin S. Corwin

Michigan Law Review

When Gladstone described the Constitution of the United States as "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man," his amiable intention to flatter was forgotten, while what was considered his gross historical error became at once a theme of adverse criticism. Their contemporaries and immediate posterity regarded the work of the Constitutional Fathers as the inspired product of political genius and essentially as a creation out of hand. Subsequently, due partly to the influence of the disciples of Savigny in the field of legal history, partly to the sway of …

A Recent History Of English Law, Arthur Lyon Cross

Michigan Law Review

In 1607, if his own word can be behaved, "tough old Sir Edward Coke," that monster of legal learning, told King James I "that causes which concern the life, or inheritance, or goods, or fortunes of his subjects are not to be decided by natural reason, but by the artificial reason and judgment of the law, which requires long study and experience before a man can attain to the cognizance of it." The celebrated Sir John Fortesque, when pressed on one occasion in the reign of Henry VI by the legal absurdity of a distinction he was laying down as …

Some Historical Matter Concerning Trade-Marks, Edward S. Rogers

Michigan Law Review

Most of the text books on the subject of trade marks begin with the case of Southern v. How, and either expressly assert, or by implicating convey the impression that trade marks are a comparatively modern thing, when, as a matter of fact few human institutions can boast a more respectable antiquity. The use of trade marks dates from the very earliest times of which we have any knowledge. The recent excavations in Asia Minor and in Egypt have revealed bricks bearing names which are supposed to be those of the manufacturers accompanied in many instances by devices. Roman bricks …

The Struggle For A Perpetuity, John R. Rood

Articles

It is natural for us moderns to conceive of the right to alienate as an inseparable incident of ownership, since we have known no other condition; and in the modern books and decisions the subject is generally disposed of with the curt statement as if it were a truism. It is believed that to such as are not familiar with the history of that doctrine a review of the struggle through centuries, by which it was finally established on its present firm foundation, would not be devoid of interest.

Some Leading Principles Of Chinese Law, Gustavus Ohlinger

Michigan Law Review

It has frequently been remarked that of all nations, China approaches most nearly the Jeffersonian ideal in being the least governed. To a greater extent than any other people, the Chinese manage their own affairs. The usages of trade are defined by the various commercial guilds-organizations which have acquired a prestige and influence without parallel in any other country. Commercial disputes are submitted to these bodies and by them are settled promptly, finally, and usually satisfactorily. Matters of currency and exchange are determined by the powerful bankers' guild. Physicians, fortune-tellers, geomancers and even mendicants, have their organizations through which the …

The Anthracite Coal Industry And The Busness Affected With A Public Interest, Andrew Alexander Bruce

Michigan Law Review

The constitutions, state and federal, do not anywhere guarantee any absolute property rights nor right to liberty. The guarantee is merely that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty and property without due process of law. The right to liberty and property was never absolute under the English law, and the American constitutions have never been construed as going further than guaranteeing the continuance of the rights which existed at the time of their adoption.

The Roman Lawyer--A Sketch, George L. Canfield

Michigan Law Review

OF the Roman lawyer this at least may be said, that his work had the quality which endures. It remains today the fundamental law of the greater part of the world and it was as much the special creation of the lawyer as our common law is the creation of the judge. As the Romans had no officers corresponding to our judges (the "judex" being practically a juror) the law of the case was usually settled by special counsel; disinterested in the issue, but of special learning in the legal points involved. These were the jurisconsults. They gave their opinions …

Decisions, Statutes, & C., Concerning The Law Of Estates In Land, John R. Rood

Books

“The following pages have been printed from the notes made from time to time while preparing to conduct exercises in the first course on real property at the University of Michigan, using Blackstone’s Commentaries on the text.… In this edition several typographical errors in the first impression have been discovered and corrected. The scope of the work has also been extended by numerous additions throughout, and by inserting the chapters on uses, trusts, and powers, which did not appear in the first edition.

JOHN R. ROOD

Dated, Ann Arbor, February 25th, 1910” --Preface.

English Law As An Exponent Of English History, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

It is not my purpose to unduly emphasize the light which the study of the laws of a people throws upon its character and development. The teaching of history should be broad enough to recognize the importance of all sides of national life. But I believe there has never been a sufficient appreciation of the real wealth of suggestive and illuminating material which is contained in the history of English law. For the English have been pre-eminently a legal race. In the study of Roman History Roman Law has always occupied a prominent place. The Romans made their reputation, so …

An Historical Development Of The Contract Theory In The Dartmouth College Case, R. N. Denham Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The theory enunciated in the famous Dartmouth College Case may be said to date back to the very beginnings of corporations. Just when were the beginnings of corporations and corporation law is, however, a question that has long been a much mooted one, some claiming that they were not known until the middle ages, while others put their inception as far back as the time of Solon in Greece; still others name Numa as the true founder of corporations, by reason of his classification of the Romans into societies according to the manual trade each followed, but the first really …

Some Historical Matter Concerning Literary Property, Edward S. Rogers

Michigan Law Review

The notion of property in published literary works was of gradual development. One may search in vain through classical literature and Roman law to find anything in the nature of copyright. Hearty condemnation of plagiarism is to be found. Stealing another man's labor and passing it off as one's own was a literary crime, but neither that nor open piracy seems to have been a matter of which the law took cognizance. Before the invention of printing, making manuscript copies of a book was such a laborious and time-consuming task that an ancient author must have felt sufficiently repaid if …

Historical Lights From Judicial Decisions, Edward Cahill

Michigan Law Review

The history of a nation is to be looked for in a great variety of places. Its traditions, its public and private records, its religious and social orders, its literature and its laws, each yield copious results to the researches of the historian. The social, religious and economic conditions of a nation at any period of its history, the state of the· domestic relations, the rights of property and of succession, the growth of personal liberty, all these and many more find their accurate expression sooner or later, in the written or unwritten laws of the land. And the movement …

Are Too Many Executive Officers Elective?, Bradley M. Thompson

Articles

We propose very briefly to call attention, to so much of the present constitution of Michigan as has to do with the executive department, and to consider the methods which the people have adopted for selecting those public servants whose official duty it is to enforce the law, to maintain public order and protect private rights.

Case Of The Monopolies Some Of Its Results And Suggestions, Sydney T. Miller

Michigan Law Review

Apparently the monopolistic idea is as old as the history of man. That great and good man, Job, may be counted as the earliest recorded "trust-buster," if we read between the lines of his story, and Solomon said, "He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him; but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it." Doubtless, by exhaustive search, we could find some record of attempts to monopolize during each century from Biblical days to the time of printing, and as surely there must have been a countermovement. But not until the last five hundred years …

A Written Constitution In Some Of Its Historical Aspects, Andrew C. Mclaughlin

Michigan Law Review

That an institution of government, like an institution or practice of society, is a growth and not a creation is now an accepted proposition. No one seeks to argue for it; no one endeavors to deny it. The introduction of this idea into our political thinking strongly influenced our methods and our ideas. In no field of study has the evolutionary idea shown itself more strongly than among workers in history and political science. And yet occasionally one is surprised by seeing how recently this idea has manifested itself in the examination of some historical problems. Until a short time …

The Scottish Jury, Rufus Fleming

Michigan Law Review

The origin of the jury is one of the subjects on which an agreement has not been. reached by writers on the history of law. A number of theories have been put forward at different times. At this day two of these theories receive considerable support. The first is that the jury system is a gradual and natural sequence from the modes of trial in use among the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Normans. The second-and perhaps the one more widely accepted at present-is that we owe trial by jury to the legal institutions of the Frankish empire. (Forsyth's "History of Trial by …

Some Observations On Case Law Reporting, John R. Rood

Articles

There is an old tradition, still believed by many lawyers, that these year-books were official reports made by a reporter appointed and paid by the king. If there ever was such a reporter, he is yet to be discovered. No year-books have been found in the treasury of the courts; there is no record of the appointment or payment of any official reporter, through all the two hundred and fifty years covered by the year-books; all the year-books now in the British Museum were found in private hands.2 Is it conceivable that an official reporter would criticize the court and …

Ecclsiastical Jurisdiction In England, Edwin Maxley

Michigan Law Review

Previous to the invasion of William the Conqueror the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England was not at all clearly defined. Under the protection, and, as protection implies jurisdiction, under the jurisdiction of the bishops were the following: sacred persons and sacred things. Among the former were included men in orders, monks and nuns; and among the latter: churches and church-yards, books and furniture of churches, sacraments, ecclesiastical and marital rituals. So far as can be found, there were not at that time any separate ecclesiastical courts. The bishops, with the assistance of archdeacons and deans, exercised their ecclesiastical jurisdiction through the …

Statute Of Uses And The Modern Deed, John R. Rood

Articles

To what extent does the modem conveyance of estates in land in the United States by deed derive its validity from the English Statute of Uses, 27 Hen. 8, c. IO? No doubt the student, and especially the teacher, is inclined to magnify the importance of mere matters of history, because it is so much easier to understand or explain many of the terms and doctrines of real property law by approaching them historically, and, indeed, many of them cannot otherwise be understood at all. And yet we all have this constant, serious, and often difficult task, of separating matter …

The Old Roman Law And A Modern American Code, Joseph H. Drake

Michigan Law Review

In Book II, on Property, Ownership, and its Modifications, the Porto Rican Code follows closely its Spanish prototype. The main variation in general outline is the omission from the American code of the special property in minerals and in intellectual productions.

The Old Common Law And The New Trusts, Ditlew M. Frederiksen

Michigan Law Review

T HE Civil Code of Porto Rico, our latest Roman American code, gives interesting proof of the fact that the two systems of law, the Roman and the English, which control most of the nations of the civilized world and their dependencies, are, in their essence, but slightly different enunciations of the same principles of natural justice. The parent of the Civil Code of Porto Rico1 is the Spanish Civil Code,2 in force in Spain since May I, 1889, and extended to Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines on July 31, 1889. The Spanish Civil-Code is the result of the …

English History And The Study Of English Law, Arthur Lyon Cross

Michigan Law Review

Ranke, the Nestor of modern historical research, was wont to say that he only wanted to know how things had happened. Lamprecht, however, more truly indicated the aim and purpose of the investigation of the past when he said that be wanted to know how things had become. Another distinction between the schools which these two men represent is, that one is primarily interested in political affairs, while the other would include within the historical field all phases of social activity. A survey of the course of scholarship during the century just closed, leads to the conclusion that this latter …

Need Of A National Incorporation Law, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

Articles

When the report of the Committee on Uniformity of legislation was submitted to the last American Bar Association, and consideration of the legal problems growing out of modem commercial combinations, was urged as a matter proper for discussion and action by that association, it was gravely argued by distinguished lawyers present that there was no legal problem to be solved. The Committee on Commercial Law, however, thought otherwise and said:- "The American people look to the American Bar for leadership on this question. Some one must lead. If not the lawyer, then it will be the demagogue."

The Conveyance Of Estates In Fee By Deed : Being A Statement Of The Principles Of Law Involved In The Drafting And Interpretation Of Deeds Of Conveyance And In The Examination Of Title To Real Property, James H. Brewster

Books

The purpose of the writer has been to state the principles of law applicable to the transfer of the title to real property by deed, in such manner as to assist one in drafting and interpreting the instrument of transfer.

The Law Of Reason, Fredrick Sir Pollock

Michigan Law Review

If there is one virtue that our books of authority claim for the Common Law more positively than another, it is that of being reasonable. The law is even said to be the perfection of reason. Not that the meaning of that saying is exhausted by the construction which a layman would naturally put upon it. For, as Coke had to tell King James I., much to his displeasure, there is an artificial reason of the law. Certainty is among the first objects of systematic justice. General principles being once fixed, the only way to attain certainty is to work …

Note And Comment, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The Law School-Changes in the Faculty--Readjustment of Courses of Study; Sir Frederick Pollock's Visit to Michigan; The Second Lecture--The Scales of Justice; The Development of Criminal Law; The Law of Reason; Corporations--railroads--Stockholding Corporations--Combinations in Restraint of Trade and Commerce--consolidation of Parallel and Competing Lines; Constitutional law--Classification--Limit of Judicial Construction;

The Relation Of The Federal And The State Judiciary To Each Other, Horace R. Lurton

Michigan Law Review

In the very cordial invitation extended to me by the distinguished President of your Bar Association to participate in the observance of this occasion it was urged that I should make a short address upon the relations of the Federal and State Judiciary to each other. As a reason for my taking this particular subject it was suggested by him that I had had the advantage of a considerable service under both systems.

The Courts Of Judea, Jerome C. Knowlton

Articles

The study of Jewish jurisprudence has become interesting during the past ten years through the efforts of some painstaking scholars, who have not been burdened with any particular dogma, but have been actuated by a true Christian spirit. They have been close students of those portions of the Talmud which throw light on the jurisprudence of the Jews.

Anglo-Saxon Jurisprudence, Thomas M. Cooley

Book Chapters

Professor Cooley's contribution to a "popular dictionary" describes the legal history and law codes of Anglo-Saxon England, an ambitious undertaking for a two-page entry. He admits outright: "The memorials that have come down to us afford but an imperfect view of Anglo-Saxon laws."

Commentaries On The Laws Of England : In Four Books, William Blackstone, Thomas M. Cooley

Books

From Editor's Preface, v.1: "Believing that the time has come when this work would be increased in value by discarding altogether the notes of English editors, and substituting matter more especially important to American practitioners and students, the editor has prepared this edition under that conviction.... To the Review of the recent progress of the law appended to the Fourth Book, there has been also added a summary account of the British Colonial System and the System of Local Government, and the means given for comparison of these with analogous institutions in the United States."