Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/188

 148 of interpretation, the common law, as actually administered, was not in any two of the colonies exactly the same. The general foundation of the local jurisprudence was confessedly composed of the same materials; but in the actual superstructure they were variously combined, and modified, so as to present neither a general symmetry of design, nor an unity of execution.

§ 164. In regard to the legislative power, there was a still greater latitude allowed; for notwithstanding the cautious reference in the charters to the laws of England, the assemblies actually exercised the authority to abrogate every part of the common law, except that, which united the colonies to the parent state by the general ties of allegiance and dependency; and every part of the statute law, except those acts of Parliament, which expressly prescribed rules for the colonies, and necessarily bound them, as integral parts of the empire, in a general system, formed for all, and for the interest of all. To guard this superintending authority with more effect, it was enacted by Parliament in 7 & 8 William 3, ch. 22, "that all laws, by-laws, usages, and customs, which should be in practice in any of the plantations, repugnant to any law made, or to be made in this kingdom relative to the said plantations, shall be utterly void and of none effect."

§ 165. It was under the consciousness of the full possession of the rights, liberties, and immunities of British subjects, that the colonists in almost all the early legislation of their respective assemblies insisted upon a