11. REINSCH: COLONIAL COMMON LAW 415 But when the expounders of the theory attempt to descend to particular statements of these general principles, they use colorless phrases that might as well be applied to any other system of civilized jurisprudence as to the common law. And when we apply the theory to the facts, we find that it is not a true and complete statement of the basis of jural relations in the early colonies. Most of the colonies made their earliest appeals to the common law in its character of a muniment of English lib- erty, that is, considering more its public than its private law elements. In the 18th century, with a more jealous supervision of colonial development by the mother country, the introduction of law books, and the growth of a trained bench and bar, a more general reception of the private law principles of England is brought about. To state the final conclusion arrived at: The process which we may call the reception of the English common law by the colonies was not so simple as the legal theory would lead us to assume. While their general legal con- ceptions were conditioned by, and their terminology derived from, the common law, the early colonists were far from applying it as a technical system, they often ignored it or denied its subsidiary force, and they consciously departed from many of its most essential principles. This is but nat- ural; the common law was a technical system adapted to a settled community ; it took the colonies some time to reach the stage of social organization which the common law ex- pressed; then gradually more and more of its technical rules were received. ^
- For a short bibliography by the author of this Essay, of treatises,
essays, and other sources, relating to Colonial Law, see Volume II of these Essays, Topic I, " Sources and Materials." — Eds.
