338
Opinion of the Court
(1810) (1794 Act) (persons "profanely curs[ing]," drinking excessively, "cock-fighting," or "play[ing] at cards, dice, billiards, bowls, shuffle-boards, or any game of hazard or address, for money").9
What we have here, then, is just the opposite of what we had in Wilson v. Arkansas. There, we emphasized that during the founding era a number of States had "enacted statutes specifically embracing" the common-law knock-and-announce rule, 514 U. S., at 933; here, by contrast, those very same States passed laws extending warrantless arrest authority to a host of nonviolent misdemeanors, and in so doing acted very much inconsistently with Atwater's claims about the Fourth Amendment's object. Of course, the Fourth
9 Given these early colonial and state laws, the fact that a number of States that ratified the Fourth Amendment generally incorporated common-law principles into their own constitutions or statutes, see Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U. S. 927, 934 (1995), cannot aid Atwater here. Founding-era receptions of common law, whether by state constitution or state statute, generally provided that common-law rules were subject to statutory alteration. See, e. g., Del. Const., Art. 25 (1776), 2 W. Swindler, Sources and Documents of United States Constitutions 203 (1973) (herein-after Swindler) ("The common law of England . . . shall remain in force, unless [it] shall be altered by a future law of the legislature"); N. J. Const., Art. XXII (1776), 6 Swindler 452 ("[T]he common law of England . . . shall still remain in force, until [it] shall be altered by a future law of the Legislature"); N. Y. Const., Art. XXXV (1777), 7 Swindler 177-178 ("[S]uch parts of the common law of England, and of the statute law of England and Great Britain . . . as together did form the law of [New York on April 19, 1775,] shall be and continue the law of this State, subject to such alterations and provisions as the legislature of this State shall, from time to time, make concerning the same"); N. C. Laws 1778, ch. V, in 1 First Laws of the State of North Carolina 353 (J. Cushing ed. 1984) ("[A]ll such . . . Parts of the Common Law, as were heretofore in Force and Use within this Territory . . . which have not been . . . abrogated [or] repealed . . . are hereby declared to be in full Force within this State"); Ordinances of May 1776, ch. 5, § 6, 9 Statutes at Large of Virginia 127 (W. Hening ed. 1821) ("[T]he common law of England . . . shall be the rule of decision, and shall be considered in full force, until the same shall be altered by the legislative power of this colony").
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