COPYRIGHT, 1895,

BY GEORGE S. BOUTWELL.

THE

NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY

Astor, Lenox and Tilden

Foundations.

1896

TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. CUSHING & Co., NORWOOD, MASS.

PRESSWORK BY ROCKWELL & CHURCHILL, BOSTON.

PREFACE.

It has been my purpose, in the preparation of this volume, to set forth in a concise form the substance of the leading decisions of the Supreme Court, in which the several articles, sections, and clauses of the Constitution of the United States have been examined, explained, and interpreted.

The inquiry covers the full period of a hundred years. In that time the more important, and the most important, provisions of that instrument have been discussed at the bar, and the questions arising from business transactions, from the relations of States to each other, from the relations of States to the national government, and questions growing out of our treaties with Indian tribes and with foreign nations, have been adjudicated by the Court.

An examination of the authorities so created justifies and renders unavoidable the conclusion that the Constitution of the United States, in its principles and in its main features, is no longer the subject of controversy, of debate, or of doubt.

The line of sovereignty in the States and the nature, extent, and limits of the sovereignty of the national government have been distinctly marked; and thus the gravest questions that have arisen under the Constitution questions that disturbed the harmony and threatened the exist ence of the Union - have passed from the field of debate into the realm of settled law.

It is a fortunate circumstance in the history of the Supreme Court and of the country that the conclusions were not reached by the concurrent action of judges taken from one section of the Union, nor by the concurrent action of