110 NOMOLOGT. 



understood, or agreed upon, by merchants, even of different nations : 

 and hence these subjects become a part of International Law. 



Cambial Laws, are those relating to Exchange ; or the transfer 

 and payment of moneys in distant places. A bill of exchange, is a 

 written direction of one person, for another person named, to pay a 

 sum of money therein mentioned, to a third person ; and this bill 

 may be sold to a fourth person, or by him to others, before it is 

 regularly paid. The parties to a bill of exchange are called the 

 drawer, who makes it ; the drawee, or the person to whom it is ad- 

 dressed ; the payee, in whose favor the bill is nominally drawn ; 

 and the presenter, who finally presents it for payment. When the 

 drawee has acknowledged the bill to be payable by him, he becomes 

 the acceptor ; and any person guaranteeing the payment, by writing 

 his name on the back of it, is called its endorser. Numerous and 

 complicated cases may arise, under bills of exchange ; but such we 

 have no room here to consider. 



CHAPTER III. 



CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. 



IN the branch of Constitutional Law, using the term in its more 

 general sense, we would include the study of the Constitutions, or 

 fundamental laws of the various nations ; that is, the structure and 

 mechanism of their government, and the appointments, powers, and 

 duties of their officers. In our own country, this branch is often 

 limited to the Constitution of the United States, and the Statutes and 

 Treaties framed under its authority ; but even here, we think it should 

 include the Constitutions of the several states, and the mechanism of 

 their governments. The Constitutions, so called, of the Roman Law, 

 were merely the edicts of the successive emperors. The famous 

 Golden Bull, of Charles IV., issued in 1356, so named from its 

 golden seal, was the Constitution of the German Empire ; on which 

 the present constitutions of Austria and Prussia have been partly 

 modelled. It contained many chapters on the public law ; together 

 with the rules for the election and crowning of the emperors ; the 

 order and rank of the imperial court ; and the functions of the arch- 

 officers of the empire. In France, notwithstanding the existence of 

 the ancient States General, of nobles and clergy, to which the Third 

 Estate, or representatives of cities were added about the year 1300, 

 the Constitution was chiefly monarchical and hierarchal, till the revo- 

 lution of 1789 ; since which time France has had nine different con- 

 stitutions, including the present one. 



The English Constitution has been successively modified, by the 

 Wit tenag emote, or Council of Wise Men, of King Alfred ; the 

 Feudal System of William the Conqueror ; the Constitutions of 

 Clarendon, enacted in 1164, under Henry II., to check the pspal 

 power; the Magna Chart a, or Great Charter of Rights, extorted 

 by the barons from King John, in 1215; the Establishment of the 



