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OF

CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY,

FOUNDED ON THE WORKS OF

Hallam, Creasy, May and Broom;

CONTAINING THE

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

AND THE

LEADING CASES IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW.

BY

FORREST FULTON, LL.B., B.A. (LOND.)

OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, ESQ., BARRISTER-AT-LAW.

"Condisce modos, amanda

Voce quos reddas: minuentur atræ
Carmine curæ."

HORACE.

LONDON:

BUTTERWORTHS, 7, FLEET STREET,
Law Publishers to the Queen's most excellent Majesty.

HODGES, FOSTER & CO., GRAFTON STREET, DUBLIN.

CALCUTTA: THACKER, SPINK & CO. BOMBAY THACKER, VINING & CO.
MELBOURNE: GEORGE ROBERTSON,

PREFACE.

THERE is scarcely any branch of learning which has received fuller elucidation at the hands of some of our ablest men than Constitutional History. Our libraries have been enriched by the stately periods of Henry Hallam, and the graceful eloquence of Sir Erskine May, and new light is being continually thrown upon the subject by the researches of Professors Stubbs and Freeman.

Yet, in spite of the value of these works, the field of Constitutional History is a terra incognita to the great mass of the public, and the reason is not far to find.

A very general feeling exists that Hallam is a very hard book, and it must be confessed that it is not the lightest possible reading; but if Hallam is hard Professor Stubbs is ten thousand times harder, and without a general acquaintance with the subject it is difficult to follow either author.

The authorities of our schools have been at last compelled by the force of public opinion to

introduce modern subjects into their curriculum ; the old antiquated idea that all that was necessary for the purposes of education was a smattering of Latin and Greek and the Mathematics, is dead and buried, the old order has changed and given place to a new, and the late Mr. Cobden's sneer about the Ilissus and Chicago is no longer deserved.

Modern subjects have not, however, so far included Constitutional History, mainly because no one has been hitherto sufficiently enterprising to write a careful, comprehensive text-book; the existing ignorance of its simplest facts is most deplorable, and it is in the earnest hope that the present work may supply the want so much felt that I have been induced to bring it before the public.

But though primarily this book is written in the hope that it may have a general circulation, I have had distinctly in view the wants of our numerous law-students.

Constitutional Law and History are now special subjects both for the General Examination prior to call to the Bar, and for the first LL.B. at the University of London, and I trust this book may be found useful in preparing for both examinations.

One word of warning to those who use it for this purpose-recollect that a text-book should be merely the basis of other reading, and that the examiners at London are somewhat hard to please.

Besides the works of Hallam, and Sir Erskine May, I have derived the very greatest assistance from Sir Edward Creasy's Constitutional History, which, if it were a little more complete, would be of incalculable value to the law student.

The constitutional law portion of the work I have gathered from Dr. Broom's book. Very many thanks are due to the learned doctor for having collected the leading cases on the subject; but what evil genius could have tempted him to compile the ponderous tome in which they are published, which I venture to say no law-student ever regarded for the first time without a shudder, it is impossible to conjecture. One thing is quite certain, and that is that if it were the onetwentieth part of its present size, it would be twenty times more valuable.

A word more and I have done, and that is with reference to the unhealthy desire to reform everything, which is the leading characteristic of the present day.

Knowing nothing of the history of the institutions under which they have the good fortune to

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