Suchergebnisse

AbstractWill interstate compacts concluded under the campact clause of the United States Constitution provide the politicla authority needful to control the interests of large regions?

The relation of the states and the nation is a topic on which there is a good deal of discussion these days. One week last spring brought to my desk four pamphlets on the subject—all of them from an anti-nationalistic point of view, and most of them emanating from the sovereign state of Maryland. At the same time The Times newspaper carried several articles on the subject. One was a rebuke by the President of the present tendency to look toward the national government for everything. A day or two later another utterance from the same distinguished source called for the establishment of a "federal" bureau of recreation.But, along with this ancient issue, whose infinite variety time has never yet been able to wither or custom to stale, goes another of even broader import.Like other branches of learning, constitutional interpretation pretends to a certain terminology or jargon of its own, but just how accurate this is, is indeed a question. And if it be inaccurate, this fact furnishes all the more reason why some attempt at defining terms should accompany a consideration of the question of the constitutional relationship of the states and the nation.

The opening paragraph of Section 8 of Article 1 of the Constitution reads as follows: "Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes‥‥ to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." For what purposes may Congress, in light of this phraseology, spend money raised by national taxation? Hamilton answered, for any purposes which Congress itself found to be promotive of the general welfare. Madison, on the contrary, held the power thus granted to be only instrumental—Congress might spend money only as a means of carrying into effect its other granted powers. So far as the practice of Congress is concerned, Hamilton's view has long since prevailed, but the Supreme Court has never had occasion so far to develop its theory on the subject. Its failure, therefore, to seize the opportunity proferred it in the Maternity Act cases is somewhat disappointing.By the Maternity Act of November 23, 1921 Congress extends financial aid, in the work of reducing maternal and infant mortality, and protecting the health of mothers and infants, to such states as shall accept and comply with the provisions of the act. The act was attacked on two grounds; first, that the appropriations voted were "for purposes not national, but local to the states," and secondly, that the acceptance by a state of the terms of the act would constitute a surrender by it of its reserved powers.

The central point of interest in the work of the court the past term is supplied by the large attention given to the question of the rights and duties of labor under the law. The problem is approached repeatedly, both from the side of the state's police power and that of national power, and in the field of statutory as well as that of constitutional construction. Important results were also reached in interpretation of the "commerce" clause, both in its aspect as a source of national power and in its aspect—because of the doctrine of the exclusiveness of the power of Congress—as a restriction on the states; but especially in the latter aspect. However, the most interesting single decision of the term for students of constitutional theory and of government was one dealing with the national power of taxation.

The "self-incrimination" clause of the Fifth Amendment was brought forward in five cases, in three of which it was attended by the "search and seizure" provisions of the Fourth Amendment. The most important of these cases was Gouled v. the United States, in which the court was asked to pass upon the admissibility in evidence, first, of a paper obtained surreptitiously by officers of the government from the office of the accused; and secondly, of papers, described to be of "evidential value only," which were taken from the office of accused under a search warrant. The court, declaring that the constitutional provisions involved must receive "a liberal construction, so as to prevent stealthy encroachment upon ‥‥ the rights secured by them," held that the government had no right to the possession of any of these papers nor to the use of them as evidence. At the same time, it was held that if the government had had the right to seize the papers in question, for instance, as so much contraband property, and had done so under a warrant sufficient in form, "then it would have been competent to use them to prove any crime against accused as to which they constituted relevant evidence."

The work of the court last term is chiefly notable for its amplification of certain important results of the preceding term. Thus, the final objection to the validity of the Eighteenth Amendment was refuted; the last great question touching the meaning of the word "income" in the Sixteenth Amendment was answered; the emergency powers of government in war time were brought into contact with more usual sources of public authority—this in the rent law cases; and some minor phases of the problem of freedom of speech and press were disposed of. However, in two cases, both of much interest to the political scientist, somewhat novel questions of national power were raised; and in neither was a certainly final solution offered. Questions of state power were again of decidedly subordinate significance and interest.