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13 Wayne L. Rev. 549 (1966-1967)
Dissecting a Constitution

handle is hein.journals/waynlr13 and id is 565 raw text is: DISSECTING A CONSTITUTION STANTON S. FAVILLEt WERE I somehow to be empowered with authority to fix the cur- riculum in American law schools, one of the required courses would be a study of state constitutions and the men and histori- cal events which shaped their frame and content. Constitutional law falls into a more simplified pattern if the causes for constitutional clauses are first understood. The purpose of this article is to present a partial recital of events from earlier times and to examine their force in the formulation of Michigan constitutions. Perhaps, what I write is already as familiar to every Michigan lawyer as are the teachings of the gospel to the ministry.1 The lawyer, who by his study has learned the framework of his state constitution and the sources from which its provisions come, not only gains a fuller meaning but may be able to apply historical direction as well as analogous case precedent in ap- proaching new constitutional problems and concepts. But, even so, there are recognized limitations: Does the new case fit existing legal molds so that it may be placed within the forms without mutilation?' During more than one hundred and fifty years before statehood, Michigan's inhabitants did not feel the tyranny of the British Crown nor the influence of the English common law but were ruled by French governors from their headquarters in Quebec.3 Shortly before the t Chief Assistant Attorney General of Michigan, 1955-1966. 1. Source references have been omitted as to historical dates and events because they are readily available in any good encyclopedia. Details pertaining to Michigan may be found by reading Bald, Michigan in Four Centuries (rev. ed. 1961); Dunbar, Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State (1965). 2. See Benjamin N. Cardozo, The Growth of the Law (1924). 3. How this came about is not common knowledge, even among lawyers. In the year 1536, Jacques Cartier, a Breton pilot and explorer, while off the coast of New- foundland, discovered the mouth of a river which he named the St. Lawrence. In the same year, he took possession of the mainland in the name of the King of France and subsequently sailed up the river as far as the site of the present city of Montreal. Settlements were eventually established in Acadia (later called Nova Scotia) and among the early settlers was a Frenchman by the name of Samuel de Champlain. He was instrumental in establishing a fur trading post at Quebec which he founded in 1608. As a gesture of friendship toward the Algonquin tribe and the Huron Indians who lived in the vicinity of Quebec, Champlain and a company of Frenchmen accom- panied them the year after Quebec was founded on a war party against the Iroquois. Champlain's contingent moved up the St. Lawrence River to the mouth of the Richelieu River then along its course to the lake which was later to bear Champlain's name. Here they encountered a band of Iroquois who fled in panic at being fired on by guns carried by the French. The attack by Champlain and the French soldiers incurred the lasting enmity of the Iroquois. This tribe, together with its confederates, occupied the lands along the south shore of Lake Ontario and from that time forward were able effectively to block the use of that waterway by the French. Due to this turn 549

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