Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/205

 CH. XVII.] the civil authority then existing, or exercised here, flowed from the head of the British empire. They were, in a strict sense, fellow subjects, and in a variety of respects one people. When the Revolution commenced, the patriots did not assert, that only the same affinity and social connexion subsisted between the people of the colonies, which subsisted between the people of Gaul, Britain, and Spain, while Roman provinces, to wit, only that affinity and social connexion, which result from the mere circumstance of being governed by the same prince." Different ideas prevailed, and gave occasion to the Congress of 1774 and 1775.

§ 179. Having considered some of the particulars, in which the political organization, and public rights, and juridical policy of the colonies were nearly similar, it remains to notice a few, in which there were important differences.

(1.) As to the course of descents and distribution of intestate estates. And, here, the policy of different colonies was in a great measure determined by the nature of their original governments and local positions. All the southern colonies, including Virginia, adhered to the course of descents at the common law (as we have had occasion to see) down to the American Revolution. As a natural consequence, real property was in these colonies generally held in large masses by the families of ancient proprietors; the younger branches were in a great measure dependent upon the eldest; and the latter assumed, and supported somewhat of the pre-eminence, which belonged to baronial possessions in the parent country. Virginia was so tenacious of entails, that she would not even endure the barring of them by the common means of fines and recoveries. New-York