Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/431

 12. SIOUSSAT: ENGLISH STATUTES 417 briefly into the theories held, in the seventeenth and eight- eenth centuries, by EngHsh judges and lawyers, as to the legal status of the colonies, and especially as to the extension to these of Statutes of the British Parliament. Afterwards, for the purpose of comparison, we shall review the experi- ences of a few other colonies, which involved these theories or principles similar to those contested in Maryland. We may first direct our attention to a case which was decided early in the seventeenth century, as a result of the union of the English and Scottish monarchies in the person of James I. For details as to the desire of James to secure for his Scotch subjects the rights of citizenship in the richer land of the South, and the general history of the " Post-nati," we must refer to the historical writings of Gardiner and Hallam, and here direct our attention to a test case, known as Calvin's Case, made up in connection with the Post-nati decision that citizens of Scotland born after James* accession were to be accounted as legally naturalized in England. In Calvin's Case the Judges enunciated certain opinions as to the position of " dependencies " with relation to the central government. A dependency, they held, was a " parcel of the Realm in tenure," and Parliament might make any statute to bind such dependency, where the latter was definitely named; but without such special naming a statute did not bind. At the same time the judges went into an extended classifi- cation of the dominions dependent on the British Crown. These they divided into 1. Christian countries to which the laws of England have been given by King or by Parliament. 2. Countries which come to the King through inher- itance. In neither of these can the King " change " the laws. 3. Conquered countries inhabited by Christians. Here the laws of the conquered remain in eff^ect until the King changes them, — which is entirely within his prerogative. 4. Conquered heathen countries at once lose their rights or laws by the conquest, " for that they be not only against Christianity, but against the law of God and of nature.