Statutes of Edward I Their Relation to Finance and Administration

Authors

Nathan Isaacs, University of Pittsburgh School of LawFollow

Abstract

Perhaps the most far-reaching effect of the American Civil war, in the long run, could be illustrated by a chart showing government expenditures before and after that rebirth of the nation. The jump from the bottom of the chart to the top, with no apparent tendency to return, reflects a new conception of the function of the government, the creation of new powers and a redistribution of- the old ones. In like manner one of the most significant features of the present period of reconstruction throughout the civilized world seems likely to find its graphic representation in a curve that wili show not a decrease, but a vast increase in the functions of government. The money needs alone, one can readily see without giving himself up to any dogmatic economic interpretation of history, will have a necessary bearing on the relation between the government and the individual and on the course of legal development- not only because the individual must be reckoned with as the tax-payer, not only because old sources of revenue must be drained and new sources tapped, but for more subtle reasons that can be suggested best by a reconsideration of a period in legal political history that most closely resembles our own in many respects, the period when feudal revenues ceased to satisfy, and the present order of taxation, politics and law was born.

Recommended Citation

Nathan Isaacs, Statutes of Edward I Their Relation to Finance and Administration, 19 Mich. L. Rev. 804 (1921).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol19/iss8/2