The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Book I.
• Preface.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: General Division of the Aggregate Body of the Law.
• Chapter II.: Constitutional Law.
• Chapter III.: Civil Or Distributive Law. *
• Chapter IV.: Penal Law.
• Chapter V.: Procedure Law. †
• Chapter VI.: Financial Law.
• Chapter VII.: Prescriptions Or Bearings of the Other Codes Or Branches of Law, to the Constitutional Code.
• Chapter VIII.: Public-opinion Tribunal.
• Chapter IX.: Good Rule and Bad Rule.
• Chapter X.: Corruption.
• Chapter XI.: Delusion.
• Chapter XII.: Fiction.
• Chapter XIII.: Factitious Honour.
• Chapter XIV.: Established Religion—none.
• Chapter XV.: Supreme Constitutive.
• Chapter XVI.: Supreme Legislative.
• Chapter XVII.: Supreme Operative.
• Book II.
• Preface to the Original Edition of Book II.
• Chapter I.: Territory of This State, Name, Situation, Boundaries, Divisions.
• Chapter II.: Ends and Means.
• Chapter III.: Sovereignty, In Whom. *
• Chapter IV.: Authorities.
• Chapter V.: Constitutive Authority. *
• Chapter VI.: Legislature.
• Chapter VII.: Legislator’s Inaugural Declaration. *
• Chapter VIII.: Prime Minister.
• Chapter IX.: Ministers Collectively.
• Chapter X.: Defensive Force.
• Chapter XI.: Ministers Severally.
• Chapter XII.
• Chapter XIII.
• Chapter XV.
• Chapter XVI.: Quasi-jury.
• Chapter XVII.
• Chapter XVIII.
• Chapter XIX.: Government Advocate General.
• Chapter XX.: Eleemosynary Advocates.
• Chapter XXI.
• Chapter XXII.
• Chapter XXIII.
• Chapter XXIV.
• Chapter XXV.
• Chapter XXVI. *
• Chapter XXVII.
• Chapter XXVIII.
• Chapter XXIX.
• Chapter XXX.
• Chapter XXXI.
• Appendix.
• No. I.
• No. II.
• No. III.
• No. IV.
• No. V.
• No. VI.
• No. VII.
• No. VIII.

No. I.

Collectanea relating to Book ii. Ch. vi. Legislature, Section 20, Attendance and Remuneration, Art. 18. (Supra, p. 165.)

Extract from an anonymous work, intituled the History of the United States. London, 1826. Published by John Miller, New Bridge Street, Blackfriars.

Speaking of New Orleans in the year 1814, some time in the month of December,—“Disaffection” (says the author, p. 434) “growing bolder, martial law was proclaimed: the authority of the Civil Magistrate was suspended: and arbitrary power was assumed and exercised by the Commander-in-Chief. May no emergency hereafter occur, in which a military officer shall consider himself authorized to cite as a precedent this violation of the Constitution.”

To all appearance, it was by this proclamation of martial law that New Orleans was saved: saved from capture, perhaps from destruction: but for this substitute to regular legislation, one or other catastrophe would have taken place.

This is but one of divers accidents to which every Government stands exposed, and by which on pain of suffering, boundless in amount, a demand for immediate action on the part of the all-embracing Legislature may be produced. Foreign war, civil insurrection, pestilence, famine: here are already four, every one of them but too frequently brought to view by experience.

The following information, relating to this subject, the author received from John Neal, Esq., an advocate in the Supreme Judicatory of the Union, January, 1826.

“The members of Congress, of the United States, are elected for two years. They meet in the first Monday in December, and rise at the end of about four months, upon the average. They sit, therefore, only one-third of the time. They may be called together on forty days’ notice, however, at any intermediate period. But, although it requires time to make a good law, and the President has power to provide for such events, whatever they may be, as are likely to require extraordinary power—as if the country be invaded, or if a rebellion should break out,—still, cases have occurred where much distress might have been saved to the people, if the chief Legislature had been in session, with power to pass a law quickly.

“By the Constitution of the United States, it is provided that no State of the Confederacy shall pass a law ‘to impair the obligation of contracts.’ By the same Constitution, power is given to the United States to pass a general Bankrupt Law.

“The several States, or the majority of them, have been in the habit of passing insolvent laws, which had the effect sometimes of discharging both the person and property of a debtor. This habit continued for thirty years. At last, however, a question was made for the Supreme Court of the United States. That Court decided, that all discharges granted under State authority, under such and such circumstances, were void; the law, under the authority of which they were granted, being void, as impairing the obligation of contracts. The effect was terrible. The country was agitated in every direction. Houses were entered and stripped—the houses of wealthy men, who had been discharged years and years before. Nothing was heard but complaint. Hundreds and hundreds of old judgments were revived, a multitude of executions issued, and thousands of new suits brought.

“A national bankrupt law was required. But the Legislature were not in session, or, if in session, they had not time enough left before they were to break up, for passing a uniform system of bankrupt law.

“The distress continued, therefore, till it found a remedy, or died away, as the outcry did. So that when the Congress did meet, they were not much pressed about the matter. A law was half prepared, but they broke up, and went home before it was finished—and so was it the next year—and the year after, and so is it now. Up to this hour they have no bankrupt law in the United States of America, though thousands and thousands of people are praying for it as their only hope.”