With the Auttions Compt. AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. BY SIMON STERNE, OF THE NEW YORK BAR. FOURTH REVISED EDITION. NEW YORK & LONDON G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS The Knickerbocker Press Gift L.L. Hubbard 12-15-27 PREFACE. THE request addressed to me by the publishers to write for non-professional readers a book on the Constitution of the United States led me to inquire whether, in the multiplicity of works on this, as on almost every other conceivable subject touching large popular interests, there is any room to say something novel, or put into a new form the old matter which has been said and written over and over again by abler tongues and pens than mine. It occurred to me that a sketch of the Constitution of the United States as it stands in text, and as it is interpreted by the Supreme Court, accompanied by a history of the political controversies which resulted in the formation of and changes in that instrument, together with the presentation of the actual situation of political parties and questions, which, in their turn, may produce constitutional changes, would, if given within a limited space, present such a view of the institutional condition of the United States as to justify this book to the student of political history. At no time in the history of the United States have its institutions awakened such widespread and friendly interest as at present. It is true that dur |