EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT been shown) the colonists had been accus tomed to looking upon their laws as possibly void, because of violating some fundamental charter; that it had been judicially held in at least five states before the Convention that a state law violating the state constitution was void and would be refused enforcement, and that these decisions were well known to mem bers and several times referred to in the Con vention: that judicial decisions grew apace after the Convention (generally with public approval and with no single decision that I can recall denying the power), while hosts of leading men in various walks of life, and not a few of whom had taken an active part in the Convention, recognized the existence of the judicial right in general and expressed their belief in its wisdom; it cannot be doubted that the evidence from surrounding circumstances that the framers directly intended the doc trine which has been recently miscalled ' the great usurpation ' is immensely strong. Add to this, too, that in the leading series of papers intended to defend the Constitution and ex plain it to the public, Hamilton wrote (as already quoted) ' Limitations of this kind [specified exceptions to the legislative author ity] can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of the courts of jus tice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Consti tution void.' Could language be plainer? "But there is no need to rest the case even upon such overwhelming evidence of proba bility from surrounding circumstances. The language of the Constitution is express. Mr. Coxe, who examined the subject with absolute impartiality long before Professor Trickett had discovered and denounced ' the great usurpa tion,' reached this conclusion, and the lan guage of the Constitution cannot be satisfied otherwise. ' The judicial power . . . shall extend to all cases . . . arising under this Constitution ' is not a mere rhetorical phrase but has a very definite meaning, the nature of which is shown clearly enough in the de bates." CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Regulation of Corporations). A sketchy but suggestive article in the November Columbia Law Review (V. vi, p. 485) by Frederick R. Coudert dis cusses " Constitutional Limitations on the
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Regulation of Corporations." The author thinks that the present anti-corporation agita tion is part of a general world movement due to changed economic conditions and that the extent of regulation is one of expediency. He cannot " believe that the restrictions of our national Constitution representing the ideas of former generations will seriously in terfere with any sound solution of present problems." . . . The important thing to re member is that what may be unconstitutional in the case of men doing business as mere in dividuals, may be quite proper when they adopt the form and privilege of incorporation. It is utterly impossible to lay down any theo retical criterion which can help us much in arriving at a solution. Fortunately for us our Supreme Court has been singularly free from all mere doctrinarianism and has as each case arose adopted a practical view. The law has thus been elastic and expansive even if by no means certain and we have been prepared to meet new conditions as they arose with out the necessity for constitutional amend ment. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (The Railway Rate Law). " Concerning the Constitutionality of the Law Regulating Interstate Railway Law," by D. Walter Brown, in the November Colum bia Law Review (V. vi, p. 497), says that the constitutionality of the law will probably be attached on these three grounds: "i. Congress lacks power to fix rates in interstate railroad transportation. 2. Admit ting that Congress has such power, yet its bestowal upon the Interstate Commerce Com mission is a delegation of legislative powers which cannot be constitutionally made. 3. The giving of general power to fix rates to the Interstate Commerce Commission amounts to, or necessarily involves, the giving of a prefer ence to the ports of one state over those of another, in violation of Section 9 of Article i of the Constitution." Mr. Brown has no doubt whatever that the law will be upheld, although particular acts of the commission may turn out to be invalid. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Taxation). "What is Equal Protection of the Laws as Applied to Tax Laws?" by C. R. Skinker, Central Law Journal (V. Ixiii, p. 318).
