134
Souter, J., dissenting
797 (1951).30 But even in the late colonial period, Americans insisted that
"the whole body of the common law . . . was not transplanted, but only so much as was applicable to the colonists in their new relations and conditions. Much of the common law related to matters which were purely local, which existed under the English political organization, or was based upon the triple relation of king, lords and commons, or those peculiar social conditions, habits and customs which have no counterpart in the New World. Such portions of the common law, not being applicable to the new conditions of the colonists, were never recognised as part of their jurisprudence." Dale, The Adoption of the Common Law by the American Colonies, 30 Am. L. Reg. 553, 554 (1882).31
The result was that "the increasing influx of common-law principles by no means obliterated the indigenous systems which had developed during the colonial era and that there existed important differences in law in action on the two sides of the Atlantic." Hall, supra, at 797.
30 See also Stoebuck, supra, at 411-412 (indicating that the Colonies became significantly more receptive to the common law after 1700, in part because of a British desire to regularize colonial legal systems).
31 See also Jones 98 ("The selective nature of the reception is evident in any examination of the state of law in the colonies in the years immediately preceding the Revolution"). An example is Trott's law, adopted by South Carolina in 1712, which declared which English statutes were in force in the Colony. Many laws of England, Trott conceded, were "altogether useless" in South Carolina "by reason of the different way of agriculture and the differing productions of the earth of this Province from that of England"; others were "impracticable" because of differences in institutions. L. Friedman, A History of American Law 90-93 (2d ed. 1985); see also C. Warren, History of the American Bar 122-123 (1911) (quoting North Carolina statute, passed in 1715, providing that the common law would be in force " 'so far as shall be compatible with our way of living and trade' ").
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