ings, and brief, but comprehensive, evidences of title. An English deed for an hundred acres is engrossed on parchment, with the letters of the alphabet tortured into a thousand useless shapes, that ancient forms may be preserved. A New England deed, in one brief page, contains all the elements of a perfect contract between the parties, with a direct assurance of title. The known defects in the laws and practice of England pointed out and so strikingly stated by Lord Brougham, in his great speech upon Law Reforms, delivered in the House of Commons, in 1828, were discovered and banished from the New England States, while they were yet colonies under the British crown. Nor can I find any essential changes or improvements specified or called for by that remarkable statesman, which were not adopted by our ancestors years ago.

You are aware that in England some of the most important offices in the civil law courts, are held by prelates of the church, and that the whole law of marriage and divorce, of personal estates, both testate and intestate, is administered under the control of bishops and archbishops. This being an inheritance from Rome, and one of the worst of the long-continued papal abuses, was abolished at once and forever by our ancestors, who committed these important trusts to responsible men, appointed by responsible tribunals; while dower and inheritance, which vary in England, with the varying customs of counties and manors, were made uniform and consistent.

The complicated proceedings of English courts in actions of ejectment were also discarded in the Eastern States, and it is only within the last twenty years that New York has adopted this obvious improvement from one of her nearest sisters. Then again, wise and equal laws were provided for a just distribution of estates

among children and heirs, while tenures were made simple, and primogenitures abolished. In England all the lands of the ancestor, on one side of a river, might descend to the oldest son, on the other to the youngest; while in a third place, the children might inherit equally. But in New England, the dictates of common sense and common justice were at once obeyed, and tenures placed upon their true foundations. And then, as to that law which prefers the first-born son to all others, in itself so iniquitous; what had our ancestors to say to that? They blotted it out from their statutebook, and banished it forever. How otherwise could equal rights be maintained, or republican forms of government preserved? In the proud monarchies of Europe, it became the policy of the aristocracy to preserve great estates in the same families in a direct line, that their influence might remain continuous and unbroken, thus transmitting from father to son not only the wealth of the ancestor, but his political influence also.

But in a free country, how should we stand if the parent might entail upon his son whole towns and counties and states, even without any accompanying political authority? Would free men contentedly ride, for thirty miles, by the side of a great estate, (as you may now in some parts of Great Britain) with the reflection in their minds, that in all time to come, the influence of that proprietor and his descendants must remain unchecked and undisturbed? What caused the most serious outbreaks among the people of Rome? And why did they desert their city, and take refuge on the sacred mount? The monopoly of lands by the rich, and the debts of the poor. What was the remedy proposed there? A division of those lands among persons whose claims upon them were those of hard necessity, if not of natural justice. But what distributive law

did our ancestors provide to check, if not effectually destroy, this dangerous accumulation of wealth in the same hands? They said that lands, where there was no will to direct otherwise, should descend to all the heirs. alike; that personal property should be equally distributed, and the power of entailment so limited, that to preserve its existence it must be renewed in every generation. This, says Judge Story, is the true agrarian law, which in all time to come will guard the just rights of acquirement and possession, while it corrects the great public evils of inordinate accumulation; and you see how instantly our ancestors seized upon and adopted this indispensable restraint.

Then the criminal laws of England, more bloody than the laws of Draco, were all remodeled, and their severities softened down; even at that time, when the public mind had not begun much to consider this important subject. In all things, I assert with confidence, in relation to the laws, both public and private, our ancestors made great and marvelous improvements upon those of the land from whence they took their origin. And these reforms became afterwards matters of the highest political concernment, when they had shaken off the control of the mother country. Republican in their habits of thinking and acting; republican in their frugality; republican in their laws and forms of government, the States of New England were early prepared for that great change wrought out for them by the war of the Revolution. Their civil and political rights were well understood from the very beginning; they were preserved and cherished through all their early struggles for existence, and were all prepared to be acted upon when the day of trial came. Hence it has been remarked, and with strict propriety, that at the time of our Independence, so slight was the connection

between some of the colonies and the mother country in their relations of law and government, and the change interfered so little with their internal concerns, that the transition from a dependent to a sovereign condition was almost imperceptible. In Connecticut, they merely erased the name of "his majesty," from their legal proceedings, and inserted, "by the name and authority of the State;" and then, in all essential particulars, the administration of the law proceeded after the Revolution, exactly as it had done before.

I presume, before dismissing this part of the subject, it may be expected, that I, considering my profession, should not pass by that which has been made a matter of scoffing and reproach upon a colony of New England, by those who, never investigating its reality, have caught from others the traditional jests connected with the blue laws of New Haven.

In the first place, it seems to be supposed that there actually were, in that colony, grave enactments against offending beer-barrels, and that the austerity of Puritan practice even prohibited a mother from kissing her child on a Sunday. Let those who have lightly received such impressions, and lightly conveyed them to others, look into the early laws of New Haven, and tell me whether, upon such examination, any mirthful emotions can come over their minds? And let me remind them further, that most of the supposed enactments rest upon this one, of which, perhaps they may have heard: "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day!"

Nothing more solemn, nothing more imposing, nothing more grave or dignified, can be found in all history, than the first acts of the colony of New Haven, when they proceeded to lay the foundations of their government. The free planters being all assembled,

say their records, Mr. Davenport commenced the business by a sermon upon these words: "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars." After this discourse and a solemn invocation of the name of God in prayer, they were reminded of the business for which they had met; that it was "for the establishment of such civil order as might be most pleasing unto God, and for the choosing of the fittest men for the foundation work of a church to be gathered." Mr. Davenport thereupon proposed divers queries, praying them to consider seriously the weight of the business about which they had met, and not to be rash in giving their votes for things which they did not understand, but to digest thoroughly, and without respect to men, what should be proposed to them, giving such answers as they would be willing should stand upon record for posterity! And thereupon it was propounded in the first place, "whether the Scriptures hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of men in their duties." This was assented to without an opposing voice; and let me ask whether there are any here present, who, if they had been standing by the side of Mr. Davenport, on that solemn occasion, would have ventured to deny that such a rule may be found in those sacred writings? The second question was, whether in the choosing of magistrates, the making and repealing of laws and the dividing of lands, the planters would be governed by the rules which the Scriptures hold forth? This also was assented to, "and no man gainsayed it, and they did testify the same by holding up their hands, both when it was first propounded, and afterwards confirmed the same, by holding up their hands when it was read unto them in public." In the improvements of time, we have been taught by our necessities, many lessons in the mode of adapting laws to