ABSTRACT
The first Sources from which the courts of any human society draw the Law are the formal utterances of the legislative organs of the society. In any organized society there may be, and, in political societies particularly, there often are, several bodies which, within the limits marked out by the organization of the society, or by the orders or tolerance of the supreme legislative body, have legislative functions. In a suit by Coggan against the town for not paying the one hundred dollars, or by the town against its treasurer's bondsmen for paying it without authority, the resolution would be as binding on the court as if it had been a statute which concerned every citizen. In the United States the same doctrine as to public and private statutes would seem, at first sight, to have been laid down. The power of Law is stronger than the power of Legislation, a legal judgment maintains itself if it contradicts a statute.
