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A DISCUSSION OF LEGISLATIVE POWERS, CONSTITUTIONAL
REGULATIONS RELATIVE TO THE FORMS OF LEGIS-
LATION AND TO LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURE

BY

J. G. SUTHERLAND

AUTHOR OF "A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF DAMAGES"

SECOND EDITION

BY

JOHN LEWIS

AUTHOR OF "A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF EMINENT DOMAIN

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PREFACE TO THE SECOND

EDITION.

The favor which has been accorded the first edition of this work by the profession and the courts, well deserves a new edition, which is now offered, with the hope that it will merit a continuance of such favor. About six thousand new cases have been incorporated in the present edition. No material change has been made in the arrangement or plan of the work and the text of the first edition has, for the most part, been preserved without change. Nearly two hundred and fifty new sections have been added, which gives some idea of the importance and variety of the new cases. Parallel references have been made, in the notes, to the Reporter System, American Decisions, American Reports, American State Reports, Lawyers' Reports Annotated, The Federal Cases and to the Lawyers' Edition of the United States Supreme Court decisions.

CHICAGO, October, 1904.

JOHN LEWIS.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

No apology to the profession is necessary from the author for offering a new book on Statutory Construction, although it is a subject which his predecessors in the same work have treated in a masterly manner. It is a field in no danger of being over-cultivated.

The law for the construction of written contracts and other private documents is as certain and well defined as upon any other branch of legal science. This is not equally true of the law for the construction of Written Laws. They deal with subjects of greater complexity; they are the pro duct of so many minds, not having common views, that incongruities cannot be wholly excluded, and threads of diverse ideas are often interwoven; and, moreover, opposing considerations of broader range press for recognition in their construction. In many ways converse rules overlap, and the lines of distinction are faint and shifting.

The natural tendency and growth of the law is towards system and towards certainty, towards modes of operation at once practical and just, by the process of its intelligent judicial administration; but this process is impaired by overwork and legislative interference.

When it is considered how many legislative bodies there are, and how many independent courts administer their laws, the diversities of construction which have occurred

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