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is no conflict between the courts and the legislature, but merely between the different kinds of law.

Of the working of this provision we may again quote the distinguished writer to whom we have had occasion so frequently to refer :

"There is no part of the American system," says Bryce, "which reflects more credit on its authors, or has worked better in practice. It has had the advantage of relegating questions, not only intricate and delicate, but peculiarly liable to excite political passions, to the cool, dry atmosphere of judicial determination. The relations of the central Federal power to the states, and the amount of authority which Congress and the President are respectively entitled to exercise, have been the most permanently grave questions in American history, with which nearly every other political problem has become entangled. If they had been left to be settled by Congress, itself an interested party, or by any dealings between Congress and the state legislatures, the dangers of a conflict would have been extreme, and instead of one civil war there might have been several. But the universal respect felt for the Constitution, a respect which grows the longer it stands, had disposed men to defer to any decision which seems honestly and logically to unfold the meaning of its terms. In obeying such a decision they are obeying, not the judges, but the people who enacted the Constitution. To have foreseen that the power of interpreting the Federal constitution and statutes, and of determining whether or no state constitutions and statutes transgress Federal provisions, would be sufficient to

prevent struggles between the national government and the state governments, required great insight and great faith in the soundness and power of a principle. While the Constitution was being framed the suggestion was made, and for a time seemed likely to be adopted, that a veto on the acts of state legislatures should be conferred on the Federal Congress. Discussion revealed the objections to such a plan. Its introduction would have offended the sentiment of the states, always jealous of their autonomy; its exercise would have provoked collisions with them. The disallowance of a state statute, even if it did really offend against the Federal Constitution, would have seemed a political move, to be resented by a political counter-move. And the veto would often have been pronounced before it could have been ascertained exactly how the state statute would work, sometimes, perhaps, pronounced in cases where the statute was neither pernicious in itself, nor opposed to the Federal constitution. But, by the action of the courts the self-love of the states is not wounded, and the decision annulling their laws is nothing but а tribute to the superior authority of that supreme enactment to which they were themselves parties and which they may themselves desire to see enforced against another state on some not remote occasion." 1

1 Bryce, p. 250; see also what John Stuart Mill says:— The tribunals which act as umpires between the federal and the state governments, naturally also decide all disputes between the citizen of one state and the Government of another. The

"The men of 1787, feeling the cardinal importance of anticipating and avoiding occasions of collision, sought to accomplish their object by the concurrent application of two devices. One was to restrict the functions of the national government to the irreducible minimum of functions absolutely needed for the national welfare, so that everything else should be left to the states. The other was to give that government, so far as those functions extended, a direct and immediate relation to the citizens, so that it should act on them, not through the states, but of its own authority and by its own officers. These are fundamental principles whose soundness experience has approved, and which will deserve to be considered by those who in time to come may have in other countries to frame Federal or quasi-Federal constitutions. They were studied, and to a large extent, though in no slavish spirit, adopted by the founders of the present constitution of the Swiss Confederation, a constitution whose success bears further witness to the soundness of the American doctrines."1

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the functions which these Federal courts have discharged in preserving the peace and harmony of

usual remedies between nations, war and diplomacy, being precluded by the federal union, it is necessary that a judicial remedy should supply its place. The Supreme Court of the federation dispenses international law, and is the first great example of what is now one of the most prominent wants of civilized society, a real International Tribunal."-" Representative Government,” p. 305.

1 Bryce, p. 318.

co-operation among the states, and maintaining the homogeneity of the whole country. The action of these courts is quiet and unobtrusive, they are called into activity only by "cases" or actual controversies to which individuals or states or the United States are parties. Unanimous praise has been awarded them by all authorities who have examined their working. There is every reason to believe that the adoption of this principle in the constitution of the United States of South Africa would have equally satisfactory results.

CHAPTER XI.

GENERAL PROVISIONS OF THE AMERICAN

CONSTITUTION.

Preface No export taxes-No preferential commercial regulations-No titles of nobility-Importance of excluding titles from South Africa-No state shall make law impairing the obligation of contract-Importance of this provision-No state can impose duties on exports or imports-Value of this article for securing internal free trade-No state may make war or make engagements with foreign powersRecognition of judicial records of courts throughout Union -Citizens of each state entitled to all privileges of citizens in any other state-Mutual extradition-Congress to have power to legislate for common territory-Guarantee of form of government and internal order in each state-Mode of amending constitutions-No religious tests-Freedom of speech, of press, of assembly and petition-Security from unlawful arrest or search-Adoption of these principles in Federal Constitution for South Africa.

WE may now, with advantage, briefly examine some of the principal features which are to be found in the American constitution, and which are worthy of consideration, and possibly of imitation, in any similar constitution to be drawn up for the United States of South Africa. We have, incidentally, while describ

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