The Hornbook Series of Elementary Treatises on all the Principal Subjects of the Law The special features of these books are as follows: 1. A succinct statement of leading principles in black-letter type. 2. A more extended commentary, elucidating the principles. 3. Notes and authorities. Published in regular octavo form, and bound in buckram, Black on Bankruptcy. Black on Construction and Interpretation of Laws (2d Ed.). Black on Judicial Precedents. Bogert on Trusts. Burdick on Real Property. Chapin on Torts. Childs on Suretyship and Guaranty. Clark on Contracts (3d Ed.). Clark on Criminal Law (3d Ed.). Clark on Criminal Procedure (2d Ed.). Clark on Private Corporations (3d Ed.). Clephane on Equity Pleading. Cooley on Municipal Corporations. Costigan on American Mining Law. Croswell on Executors and Administrators. Dobie on Bailments and Carriers. Eaton on Equity Jurisprudence (2d Ed.). Gardner on Wills (2d Ed.). Gilmore on Partnership. Goodrich on Conflict of Laws. Hale on Damages (2d Ed.). Hughes on Admiralty (2d Ed.). Hughes on Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure (2d Ed.). McKelvey on Evidence (3d Ed.). Norton on Bills and Notes (4th Ed.). Radin on Roman Law. Shipman on Common-Law Pleading (3d Ed.). Smith's Elementary Law. Tiffany on Agency (2d Ed.). Tiffany on Banks and Banking. Tiffany on Persons and Domestic Relations (3d Ed.). Tiffany on Sales (2d Ed.). Vance on Insurance. Wilson on International Law (2d Ed.). Hornbooks on the law of other subjects will be published from time to time. Published and for sale by WEST PUBLISHING CO., ST. PAUL, MINN. C11517-1b HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN BY HENRY CAMPBELL BLACK, LL. D. AUTHOR OF BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY, AND OF TREATISES ON JUDGMENTS FOURTH EDITION ST. PAUL, MINN. WEST PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1895 BY WEST PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1897 BY WEST PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1910 BY WEST PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1927 BY WEST PUBLISHING COMPANY 355961 BL.CONST.L. (4TH ED.) PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION THE great expansion and development of American constitutional law within the past sixteen years-the period which has elapsed since the publication of the third edition of this book-with the addition of no less than four amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the effect of the World War in calling into activity vastly important powers of the national government, latent in the Constitution, but dormant for fifty years, and the accumulation of a great body of more recent decisions, many of them applicable to entirely novel conditions, others of paramount importance in their elucidation of fundamental principles, have rendered necessary a complete revision and reconstruction of the present work. The same general methods of treatment have been adhered to as in former editions. But it has been necessary to take into account, and to depict through the means of text and citations, the enormous number of new laws and the almost infinite range of subjects to which it has been thought fit to apply legislation as a remedy; the remarkable extent to which such legislation has gone in the direction of endeavors to prevent fraud, imposition, extortion, and abuse of economic superiority; the universality with which all these new laws have been assailed on constitutional grounds in the courts; the evident disposition of the courts to hold them all valid if this can possibly be reconciled with constitutional limitations broadly interpreted; the consequent removal of all practical restrictions upon the exercise of the police power, except the indefinite requirement that it shall bear some reasonable relation to the public welfare in some of its aspects; and the increasing (and perhaps ominous) tendency to centralize power in the federal government often at the expense of the states. It would of course have been impossible within the limits of a single volume to refer to all the decisions on constitutional questions rendered since the publication of the last edition. But the preference has been given to (a) rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States, as the final authority on the federal Constitu |