I INTRODUCTION SINCE American legislatures derive their authority from written constitutions, the determination of statutemaking power in the United States is a problem of constitutional law.1 Indeed, were it not for the existence of written constitutions having the force of supreme law, the consideration of the powers of the legislature in Iowa could be dismissed with the simple statement that this legislature, like the British Parliament,2 is omnipotent. But under the American system of written constitutions the subject of legislative authority must be resolved largely into a discussion of constitutional limitations. Nor is it possible to designate the sphere of legislative authority except by pointing out the several respects in which that authority is limited: in the very nature of the case a specific enumeration of the lawmaking powers which a State legislature may exercise is impracticable. Even the consideration of limitations must in certain respects fall short of detailed enumeration. While the question of legislative power is largely a problem of constitutional law, it is true that the source, the extent, and the nature of such authority are discovered in statute books and in court reports as well as in written constitutions. Accordingly, a study of the lawmaking powers of the legislature in Iowa involves, among other requirements, an examination of the Constitution of the United States, the Organic Law of 1838, the Con stitution of 1846, the Constitution of 1857, the reports of the Supreme Court of the United States and of the Supreme Court of Iowa, the acts of Congress, and the statute laws and codes of Iowa.1 To obtain a general notion of the nature and extent of the law-making power of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Iowa one has but to read the chapter titles of statutes as listed in the "Table of Contents" of the Revised Statutes of 1842-1843. A good idea of the content of legislative authority as exercised by the General Assembly of the State may be gathered from the "Analysis of the Code by Titles and Chapters" which is given in the early pages of the Code of 1897, or from the "Analysis of the Code and Supplement" as printed in the Supplement to the Code of Iowa, 1913. Here, at a glance, the reader sees the whole field of statute law as cultivated in this State. A closer view of these ponderous volumes reveals, in smaller type, the judicial interpretation and construction of the statute law by the courts. On the other hand it may be said that commentaries or texts on constitutional law, more especially on constitutional limitations, contain for legislators the most satisfactory presentation of the principles upon which a State legislature exercises law-making authority, as well as the rule of decision upon which the courts have construed that authority. Nor is it difficult to indicate a standard work on constitutional limitations which may be relied upon as a guide in the making of statute law: Cooley's Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations which Rest upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union, now in its seventh edition, is unsurpassed as a clear and concise exposition of the principles |