enforceable. An examination of the cases decided by the Supreme Court under Marshall and Taney will prove that theories of government and law, entertained by a majority of the Court under the leadership of the actual and titular heads of the Court, have had great weight in the effect given to constitutional provisions. What weight should be given to previous opinions of courts? To what extent should theories of government prevail? Succeeding courts have often reversed the position of previous ones on great Constitutional questions. Moreover, mere theories must in time give way to what is constitutionally possible. The Constitution was not designed to give effect to one or several theories. Its purpose was to make the cooperative life of the nation easier, more efficient and more effective. It must, in effect, be a reconciliation of the economic, social, and political interests of the people who made it and who live under it. On this point, Judge Holmes, in his dissenting opinion in the case of Lochner v. New York (198 U. S. 45) significantly stated: But a Constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the state or of laissez faire. It is made for people of fundamentally differing views, and the accident of our finding certain opinions natural and familiar, or novel, and even shocking, ought not to conclude our judgment upon the question whether statutes embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States. It is idle to contend that the Constitution is a static thing. It is dynamic, and the means is provided for expansion or contraction as the public need requires. "To erect a state, to institute the form of its government, is a function inherent in the sovereign people." The power to make implies the power to change, within the limits and through the machinery determined upon by the power to make. The Courts have agreed that the Constitution may be changed in any way with the exception of the provisos appearing in the instrument. It would be strange, indeed, if the people-living for almost a century and a half under a written instrument, did not amend it. It would be strange if they did not, as the years pass, give effect to some of its provisions through extra-constitutional means not intended by the framers. The Constitution is by no means a definite thing. On this point Judge Cooley has truthfully declared: We may think that we have the Constitution all before us; but for practical purposes, the Constitution is that which the government in its several departments and the people in the performance of their duties as citizens recognize and respect as such; and nothing else is. Cervantes says: "Every one is the son of his own works." This is more emphatically true of an instrument of government than it can possibly be of a natural person. What it takes to itself, though at first unwarrantable, helps to make it over into a new instrument of government, and it represents at last the acts done under it. However, amendments to the Constitution, and what has been called the "custom of the Constitution," do not operate to upset the fundamental principles of the Constitution, or to dictate the writing of a new instrument based upon an entirely different set of principles. Just as certain extraconstitutional practices have become established through custom, so have the first principles and the main features of the written constitution found a definite and lasting place in our national life. Most of the writers who suggest radical changes, magnify the few practices which vary from the original Constitutional design and minify the importance of the many Constitutional provisions which are definitely woven into our national fabric. It should be remembered that a few concrete cases do not suffice to establish a general principle of widespread application. Professor Beard, easily the first of the scholars who stress "the changing spirit of the Constitution," or look upon the instrument as essentially "a changing organism," has answered this view himself by laying down the following "general principles of the federal system"; 1. The doctrine of limited government. 2. The doctrine of delegated powers and the supremof federal law. acy 3. The protection of private rights. 4. The separation of powers. 5. The doctrine of judicial supremacy. 6. The regulation of relations between states. 7. The definition and guarantee of such political rights as citizenship and suffrage. These general principles, so ably framed by Professor Beard, while subject to modification by constitutional interpretation and political practice, have in the main remained as they were conceived at the time of the "Founding Fathers." No substantial effort has been made to change them by amendment. They have been strengthened through the passing of time. They have found expression in the written provisions of the Constitution, and are exemplified in the practice of the national and state governments, and in the civic behavior of our citizens. To eradicate them would be to destroy the instrument which gave them birth. They must prevail if the Constitution is to endure. READING HAINES.-The American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy, pp. 312-353. --Judicial Review of Legislation in the United States and the Doctrines of Vested Rights and of Implied Limitations on Legislatures, Texas Law Review, Vol. II, No. 4, June, 1924. ROOSEVELT.-New Nationalism. -Autobiography. BUTLER.-Why Change Our Form of Government? MACDONALD.-A New Constitution for a New America. BEARD AND SCHULTZ.-Documents on the Initiative, Referendum and Recall. VANDENBERG.—If Hamilton Were Here Today. GOODNOW.-Social Reform and the Constitution. COXE.-Judicial Power and Unconstitutional Legislation. BULLITT.-The Supreme Court and Unconstitutional Legislation, American Bar Association Journal, June, 1924, pp. 419-425. NORTON.-The Supreme Court's Five to Four Decisions, American Bar --What Damage Have Five to Four Decisions Done? American FULLER.-Child Labor and the Constitution. RICHARDSON.-Constitutional Doctrines of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Series XLII, No. 3. NOTE ON A GENERAL READING LIST In addition to the reading lists appended to each section, it is important that the student should keep in mind the onward sweep of Constitutional formation and development. For Part I, the Formation of the American Constitutional System, the student cannot be too familiar with Farrand's three volumes on The Records of the Constitution. The Federalist should be carefully read by every student of the Constitution. Other important works are: Bancroft, History of the Constitution, 2 vols.; Fiske, The Critical Period; Farrand, The Framing of the Constitution; and Beard, The Supreme Court and the Constitution, and The Economic Interpretation of the Constitution. For Part II, the Development of the American Constitutional System, the student should read the important cases cited in the text, including the following: Marbury v. Madison; Dartmouth College v. Woodward; McCulloch v. Maryland; Ableman v. Booth; Charles River v. Warren Bridge, ex parte Merryman; Munn v. Illinois; Smyth v. Ames, and Pollock v. Farmers Loan and Trust Company. For political and legal development, the following books are important: Burgess, The Middle Period; Dunning, Essays in Civil War and Reconstruction; and Haines, The American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy. The Supreme Court and the Constitution are dealt with in two recent exhaustive works: Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History, 3 vols.; and Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall, 4 vols. Cases on Constitutional Law have been compiled by Thayer, Hall, and Evans. Evolutionary discussions of the Constitution include Norton, The Constitution of the United States, its Sources and its Application; Beck, The Constitution of the United States; Bur |