Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/179

 CH. XVI.] clearness and force by Lord Mansfield, in his celebrated judgment in Hall v. Campbell, (Cowp. R. 204, 211, 212.) In a still more recent case it was laid down by Lord Ellenborough, that the law of England might properly be recognised by subjects of England in a place occupied temporarily by British troops, who would impliedly carry that law with them.

§ 156. The doctrine of Mr. Justice Blackstone, therefore, may well admit of serious doubt upon general principles. But it is manifestly erroneous, so far as it is applied to the colonies and plantations composing our Union. In the charters, under which all these colonies were settled, with a single exception, there is, as has been already seen, an express declaration, that all subjects and their children inhabiting therein shall be deemed natural-born subjects, and shall enjoy all the privileges and immunities thereof; and that the laws of England, so far as they are applicable, shall be in force there; and no laws shall be made, which are repugnant to, but as near as may be conveniently, shall conform to the laws of England. Now this declaration, even if the crown previously possessed a right to establish what laws it pleased over the territory, as a conquest from the natives, being a fundamental rule of the original settlement of the colonies, and before the emigrations thither, was conclusive, and could not afterwards be abrogated by the crown. It was an irrevocable annexation of the colonies to the mother country, as dependencies governed by the same laws, and entitled to the same rights.