The author of this dissertation, John Randolph Neal, was born September, 16, 1874, at Rhea Springs, Tennessee. His early education was received at the public schools in Tennessee and Washington, D. C. In 1890, he entered the University of Tennessee and was graduated in 1893 with the degree of A.B. During the years 1893-96, he pursued graduate work in Vanderbilt University, taking courses in History, Economics, Literature, and Philosophy. In 1894, he received the degree of A.M.; and in 1896, the degree of LL.B. Since 1896, Mr. Neal has been a graduate student at Columbia University. He has had Constitutional and Administrative Law as a major subject, and Roman Law, and Political Economy and Finance as minor subjects. He has attended courses given by Professors Burgess, Goodnow, Munroe Smith, Mayo-Smith, Moore, and Seligman. While at Vanderbilt, Mr. Neal held university scholarships in Economics and History. At Columbia, he has been University Scholar in Political Science and Public Law. * * * * * * Transcriber’s note: Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of the chapter in which related anchors occur. Inconsistent hyphenation and misspelled words were not corrected. Space was removed after apostrophe in “coup d’état.”