THE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 28165 OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. BY DR. H. VON HOLST, PRIVY COUNCILOR AND PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF FREIBURG. AUTHORIZED EDITION. TRANSLATED BY ALFRED BISHOP MASON. CHICAGO, ILL.: Entered according to Act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-seven in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. DAVID ATWOOD, PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER, MADISON, WI9. This treatise on the constitution of the United States is but a sketch. I, this time, could not attempt to write a more pretentious work, for it was to form part of Marquardsen's "Handbuch des Oeffentlichen Rechts." Editor and publisher had to insist upon it that I, like all the other contributors, consented to being bound by contract not to exceed a certain number of pages. Though they afterwards kindly allowed me nearly double the space originally agreed upon, yet no sooner had I dipped my pen into the inkstand than it became evident that even the most essential questions had to be treated with a brevity which more than once sorely tried my temper. Questions of less importance, though, too, of considerable interest, had to be compressed into a still smaller compass, and many a point which had found a place in my preparatory notes had to be thrown out entirely. The difficulty in deciding what to retain and what to let go by the board, how much space to allow to each question and last, not least - how to treat them, was greatly increased by the consideration that I was to write for European readers. Even the foremost American authors could serve me but to a very limited extent as models, because they have all written for Americans, while my task was not to be the instructor of those who are to the manor born, but the cicerone of strangers. These having but little time to spare, and their interest in the subject being but limited and quite unconnected with |