REVENUE. The income of the government arising from taxation1, duties, and the like; and, according to some correct lawyers, under the idea of revenue is also included the proceeds of the sale of stocks, lands, and other property owned by the government. Story, Const. 877. Vide Money Bills. By revenue is also understood the income of private inpiduals and corporations.
REVERSAL, international law. First. A declaration by which a sovereign promises that he will observe a certain order, or certain conditions, which have been once established, notwithstanding any changes that may happen to cause a deviation2 therefrom; as, for example, when the French court, consented for the first time, in 1745, to grant to Elizabeth, the Czarina of Russia, the title of empress, exacted as a reversal, a declaration purporting3 that the assumption of the title of an imperial government, by Russia, should not dero-gate from the rank which France had held towards her. Secondly4. Those letters are also termed reversals, Litterae Reversales, by which a sovereign declares that, by a particular act of his, he does not mean to prejudice a third power. Of this we have an example in history: formerly5, the emperor of Germany, whose coronation, according to the golden ball, ought to have been solemnized at Aix-la-Chapelle, gave to that city when he was crowned elsewhere, reversals, by which he declared that such coronation took place without prejudice to its rights, and without drawing any consequences therefrom for the future.
TO REVERSE, practice. The decision of a superior court by which the judgment6, sentence or decree of the inferior court is annulled7.
2. After a judgment, sentence or decree has been rendered by the court below, a writ8 of error may be issued from the superior to the inferior tribunal, when the record and all proceedings9 are sent to the supreme11 court on the return to the writ of error. When, on the examination of the record, the superior court gives a judgment different from the inferior court, they are said to reverse the proceeding10. As to the effect of a reversal, see 9 C. P. 513 S, C. 38 E. C. L. Rep. 201.
REVERSION, estates. The residue12 of an estate left in the grantor, to commence in possession after the determination of some particular estate granted out by him; it is also defined to be the return of land to the grantor, and Iiis heirs, after the grant is over. Co. Litt. 142, b.
2. The reversion arises by operation of law, and not by deed or will, and it is a vested interest or estate, and in this it differs from a remainder, which can never be limited unless by either deed or devise. 2 Bl. Comm. 175; Cruise, Dig. tit. 17; Plowd. 151; 4 Kent, Comm. 349; 19 Vin. Ab. 217; 4 Com. Dig. 27; 7 Com. Dig. 289: 1 Bro. Civil Law, 213 Wood's Inst. 151 2 Lill. Ab. 483. A reversion is said to be an incorporeal13 hereditament. Vide 4 Kent, Com. 354. See, generally, 1 Hill. Ab. c. 52, p. 418; 2 Bouv. Inst. n. 1850, et seq.
