The Foundations of American Nationality Author:Evarts Boutell Greene This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 Excerpt: ...of law which had grown up gradually in an old country plainly could not be applied mechanically in a new community constantly facing probl... more »ems quite unfamiliar to English jurists. In the eighteenth century, this tendency to modify the Increasing common law in accordance with local conditions was counter-0f the comacted by two important influences. During this period strong mon hw-pressure was brought to bear by the British government, which was now more careful to appoint provincial judges and attorneys-general who knew something about the common law and could be counted on to apply it so far as possible. The royal veto on colonial laws and the right of appeal from provincial courts to the Privy Council were also used for the same purpose. Meantime, entirely different motives were helping to popularize the common law among the colonists. With the overthrow of the old charters, the problem of defending English liberty against abuse of the royal prerogative became more nearly like what it had been in England. More attention was, therefore, paid to The lawyer class. Influence of English statutes. Difficulties in administration. those provisions of the common law which had proved useful for this purpose in the past. Meantime, the lawyer class, at first weak and discredited, gradually increased in numbers and prestige. Many lawyers, especially in Pennsylvania and the South, were trained in the English Inns of Court; others came indirectly under the same influence. Those lawyers who took the popular side were soon making effective use of English law in defense of colonial rights. According to the orthodox theory, the only English law which took effect in any particular colony was the common law, so far as it was applicable to local conditions, and such statute law...« less