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The Constitution of the United States A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution By: James M. Beck (1861-1936) |
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JAMES M. BECK HONORARY BENCHER OF GRAY'S INN
The Constitution of the United States A brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of
the Constitution of the United States By James M. Beck, LL.D . Solicitor General of the United States, Honorary Bencher of Gray's Inn With a Preface by The Earl of Balfour " Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the
Law, happy is he." Proverbs xxix . 18 " Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have
set." Proverbs xxii . 28
TO THE HON. HARRY M. DAUGHERTY ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES A TRUE AND LOYAL FRIEND, A FAIR AND CHIVALROUS FOE With whom it is the author's great privilege to collaborate as
Solicitor General in defending and vindicating in the Supreme Court of
the United States the principles and mandates of its Constitution Chamonix , July 14 1922
Preface by the Earl of Balfour [1]
I have been greatly honoured by your invitation to take the chair on
this interesting occasion. It gives me special pleasure to be able to
introduce to this distinguished audience my friend, Mr. Beck,
Solicitor General of the United States. It is a great and responsible
office; but long before he held it he was known to the English public
and to English readers as the author who, perhaps more than any other
writer in our language, contributed a statement of the Allied case in
the Great War which produced effects far beyond the country in which it
was written or the public to which it was first addressed. Mr. Beck
approached that great theme in the spirit of a great judge; he
marshalled his arguments with the skill of a great advocate, and the
combination of these qualities qualities, highly appreciated
everywhere, but nowhere more than in this Hall and among a Gray's Inn
audience has given an epoch making character to his work. To day he
comes before us in a different character. He is neither judge nor
advocate, but historian: and he offers to guide us through one of the
most interesting and important enterprises in which our common race has
ever been engaged. The framers of the American Constitution were faced with an entirely new
problem, so far, at all events, as the English speaking world was
concerned; and though they founded their doctrines upon the English
traditions of law and liberty, they had to deal with circumstances which
none of their British progenitors had to face, and they showed a
masterly spirit in adapting the ideas of which they were the heirs to a
new country and new conditions. The result is one of the greatest pieces
of constructive statesmanship ever accomplished. We, who belong to the
British Empire, are at this moment engaged, under very different
circumstances, in welding slowly and gradually the scattered fragments
of the British Empire into an organic whole, which must, from the very
nature of its geographical situation, have a Constitution as different
from that of the British Isles, as the Constitution of the British Isles
is different from that of the American States. But all three spring from
one root; all three are carried out by men of like political ideals; all
three are destined to promote the cause of ordered liberty throughout
the world. In the meanwhile we on this side of the Atlantic cannot do
better than study, under the most favourable and fortunate conditions,
the story of the great constitutional adventure which has given us the
United States of America. A.J.B. [Footnote 1: [Address of the Earl of Balfour as Chairman on the occasion
of the delivery on June 13, 1922, in Gray's Inn of the first of the
lectures herein reprinted.]]
Introduction by Sir John Simon, K.C. [2]
I have the privilege and the honour of adding a few words to express our
thanks to the Solicitor General of the United States for this memorable
course of lectures. They are memorable alike for their subject and their
form; alike for the place in which we are met and for the man who has so
generously given of his time and learning for our instruction... Continue reading book >>
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