warfare; that is, by conflicts of armed forces. At the beginning of the World War efforts were made in vain by diplomats to prevent the spread of the war. During its progress, the United States repeatedly offered to act as arbitrator and mediator between the combatants, but without success. In the end, the United States was compelled to take part in the strife, partly to punish the lawless submarine warfare on our commerce carried on by the Germans, but chiefly to bring to an end a contest in arms that threatened the very life of modern civilization. The World War, like other wars, was thus a resort to force in a case in which negotiation had failed and arbitration had been refused. In the case of Foster v. Neilson, decided in 1829 by the U. S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice Marshall said: There being no tribunal to decide [controversies between nations], . . . each determines for itself on its own rights, and if they cannot adjust their differences peaceably, the right remains with the strongest. 12 Peters, U. S. Rep., 253. CHAPTER XXI THE ENACTED LAW Nature of Statute Law. The law has been variously conceived either as the ideal of right and justice or as the body of rules that have been found useful in regulating the dealings of persons with one another or as the command of the supreme governing power of a society. It consists of constitutions; the rules of the common law, of equity, and of international law; and statutes. It is never an arbitrary, unchangeable system of rules. The basic principles of government embodied in constitutions must be amended from time to time in order to conform to the changing ideals of the people. The rules of the common law and the procedure in equity must be modified or expanded at intervals in order to be applicable to the varying conditions of society. Statutes which usually accurately reflect the will of the people at a given time frequently need subsequent amendment or repeal. In old times in England when only the few knew how to read and write, the people in their mutual dealings changed their customs and usages of conduct and dealing by adopting new customs and usages whenever new circumstances made such new customs and usages desirable. Courts of justice, whenever cases involving new customs and usages came before them, made new rules of law and of equity, which displaced the old. In course of time, the great council of England, the Parliament, which originally was a body that decided how much money was needed to carry on the government and advised the king concerning the ways and means by which the money should be collected, began to make acts or statutes that declared the rules of law which should be applied in given cases in which it was desirable to modify old rules or adopt new ones. This method of making or declaring the law by legislative act had become a part of the English constitution at the beginning of the English colonization of America, and was brought to this country by the founders of English Colonial America. The people of the original thirteen States, following the forms of the colonial governments, adopted constitutions, each of which gave to legislatures the power to make the laws-the legislative power, prescribed the rules which those legislatures should follow in exercising that power, and limited its exercise by bills of rights. The People of the United States, in like manner and for the same reason, adopted the Constitution of the United States which vested the legislative power in the Congress, made rules to be followed in the making of laws, and enumerated the objects for which laws might or might not be made. The constitutions of the States and the Constitution of the United States, as fundamental laws, thus give to legislatures the power to make from time to time such laws as are needed. Constitutions are the sources of the legislative power; legislatures are the instruments of that power. Constitutions create the legislatures |