Popular Law-making

The limits of statute law and the weight of inherited legal custom guide this study of legislation. Frederic Jesup Stimson draws on lectures intended for business students, journalists and people interested in politics. Published in 1911, the book follows English ideas of common law, representative government and Magna Charta before turning to legislation in the United States. Its chapters connect the history of law with practical disputes over property, trade, wages and public authority.

Corporate regulation receives close attention. In his discussion of business corporations, Stimson presents a committee's arguments about capitalization, taxation, disclosure and the difficulty of supervising companies formed under another state's laws. The wider contents cover labor protections, voting, individual rights and the drafting of statutes. Readers interested in the history of political reform can examine how these issues were arranged and debated in an early twentieth-century survey written for a broad audience.