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lands subject to the superior title of the people of the State. The State may take such lands or other property for public use, upon payment of a just compensation therefor. On failure of title for defect of heirs, the title reverts to the State. Hence, the State has exclusive authority to make all laws regulating the acquisition, the enjoyment, and transmission of all the real and personal property within the State.

6. The State-1. Regulates the descent of the property of its citizens who die intestate; 2. Grants to its citizens power to devise or bequeath their property by last will and testament; 3. Defines the right of the widow to dower, and the right of the husband to courtesy; 4. Defines the powers and duties of executors and administrators; 5. Creates corporations; 6. Regulates the boundaries of towns, counties, and districts; 7. Prescribes the mode of selecting its public officers; 8. Organizes its militia for the defence of the State; 9. Regulates the assessment and collection of taxes; 10. Provides for the public instruction of the children of the State; 11. Establishes and regulates highways, bridges, and ferries; 12. Provides for the support and maintenance of the poor; 13. Provides employment for beggars and vagrants; 14. Regulates the navigation of rivers; 15. Prescribes the manner of creating and annulling the marriage contract; 16. Defines the effect of such contract upon the property of the parties to the contract; 17. Defines the mutual rights and duties of parent and child, guardian and ward, master and servant; 18. Establishes its courts of justice; 19. Provides for the protection and enforcement of right, and the redress and prevention of wrong; 20. Defines the various crimes, and affixes the degree of punishment. These rights, powers, and duties belong exclusively to the State; and no other

zen hold his lands? For what purpose may the State take the lands or other property of the private citizen? Upon what condition? On failure of title for defect of heirs, to whom does the title revert? What laws has the State exclusive authority to make?

6. What other matters belong exclusively to the State?

government has a right, under any pretence, to interfere with these domestic rights of the State.

7. The national government, in addition to the powers and duties already mentioned, regulates the boundaries of States; controls and regulates the national territories, and provides for their admission as States; controls the sale of the national lands; makes all laws in reference to internal improvements; holds and controls all forts, magazines, arsenals, and navy-yards; establishes uniform rules of naturalization; and takes such lands or other property as may be necessary for public purposes, upon payment of a just compensation therefor, when the safety and welfare of the nation shall require it.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CONSTITUTIONS, HOW AMENDED.

1. CONGRESS can propose amendments to the national constitution, and the several legislatures can propose amendments to the State constitutions.

2. On the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the States of the Union, Congress shall call a convention to propose amendments. When the legislature of the State pass an act authorizing the electors to vote for or against holding a convention to revise the State constitution, and a majority of the electors in the State vote in favor of such convention, the legislature provide by law for the election of delegates to such convention.

7. What other powers and duties, in addition to those already mentioned, belong to the national government?

1. Who may propose amendments to the national constitution? Who may propose amendments to the State constitutions?

2. On whose application will Congress call a convention to propose amendments? On whose application will the legislature provide by law for the election of delegates to a convention to revise the State con stitution?

3. The proposed amendments made by Congress to the national constitution must be ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States. The proposed amendments made by the legislature to the State constitution must be ratified by the electors in the State by a vote of a majority. Such amendments, so ratified, both State and national, become parts of the constitutions.

4. We have already examined the principal provisions of our State and national constitutions. All the law in reference to the several subjects mentioned is not contained in the constitutions. We shall state some additional provisions in their appropriate places.

CHAPTER XXIX.

SOURCES OF AMERICAN LAW.

1. Ir is proper here to state that the several colonies, before the Revolution, were bodies politic and corporate. They had their legislative, executive, and judiciary powers and departments of government. They acknowledged allegiance to the government of Great Britain, and claimed the great body of the English law as their law. The Colonial Congress which met at Philadelphia on the 5th of September, 1774, declared unanimously, "That the inhabitants of the English colonies in North America, by the immutable law of nations, the principles of the English constitution, and the several charters or compacts, are entitled to the common law of England, and to the benefit of

3. How must the amendments proposed by Congress be ratified? How must amendments proposed by the legislature be ratified? What effect do these amendments have when duly ratified?

4. What have we already examined? Is all the law in reference to these subjects contained in the constitutions?

1. What were the several colonies before the Revolution? What departments of government did they have? To whom did they acknowledge allegiance? What did they claim? To what did the Colonial

such of the English statutes as existed at the time of their colonization, and which they have, by their experience, respectively found to be applicable to their several local and other circumstances. That these, his majesty's colonies, are likewise entitled to all the immunities and privileges granted and confirmed to them by royal charter, or secured by their several codes of provincial law."

2. When the colonies formed and adopted their State constitutions, they did not claim that they had improved upon the constitution under which the colonies were formed; but they claimed an equality with their brethren who had remained in England. In the first constitution of the State of New York, it was ordered, determined, and declared, that such parts of the common law of England, and of the statute laws of England and Great Britain, and of the acts of the legislature of the colony of New York, as, together, did form the law of said colony on the 19th day of April, 1775, shall be and continue the law of the State, subject to such alterations as the legislature should, from time to time, make concerning the same.

3. They abrogated and rejected all such parts of the common law and statute law as might be construed to establish or maintain any particular denomination of Christians, or to claim allegiance to the government of Great Britain. They also abrogated all parts of the common and statute laws repugnant to the constitution.

4. At the time the colonies became independent, they retained the whole body of the statute and common laws which were applicable to them in their new form of government. They still retain a large proportion of that law,

Congress declare that the colonies were entitled? To what other immunities and privileges were they entitled?

2. Did the colonies claim to have improved upon the constitution under which they were formed? What did they claim? In establishing the first constitution of New York, what laws did that colony declare should continue the law of the State? Subject to what?

3. What did they abrogate and reject?

4. What did the colonies retain when they became independent? What do they still retain? What are the sources of American law?

either incorporated into their constitutions, their statute laws, or the decisions of the several courts. The sources of American law then are: 1. The national and State constitutions, which are the supreme law of the nation and of the several States; 2. Laws passed by Congress and by the legislatures of the several States; 3. Laws passed by the colonial legislatures and colonial congresses in any State before it became independent; 4. The common and statute laws of England, passed before the colonies became independent; 5. The common law of the United States and of the several States.

CHAPTER XXX.

LAWS OF ENGLAND BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.

1. In the year 1765, Sir William Blackstone published the first volume of his Commentaries on the Laws of England; and each year thereafter published an additional volume, until the four volumes had been published. These works were read and studied in the English colonies in North America with as much interest, and perhaps more, than in England. The colonists claimed that the law of England, as there set forth, was their law, which claim could not be disputed. The first of these lectures had been published separately, in which the distinguished author had declared that "a competent knowledge of the laws of the society in which we live is the proper accomplishment of every gentleman and scholar. As every person is interested in the preservation of the laws of his country, it is incumbent upon every man to be acquainted,

1. When was the first volume of Blackstone's Commentaries pub lished? When were the three subsequent volumes published? Were these works read by the English colonists? What did the colonists claim? What does the author say is the necessary accomplishment of every gentleman and scholar? What does he say is incumbent upon

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