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Sioussat's The English Statutes in Maryland, 1903
Volume 195, Page 25   View pdf image (33K)
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489] The English Statutes in Maryland. 25
utes had been broached in many other plantations. One or two
instances will suffice for illustration. In 1692 the Assembly of
South Carolina passed an Act authorizing the judicial officers
of the colony to execute the Habeas Corpus Act—an Act
passed some years later than the settlement of Carolina. This
the Proprietors disallowed, however, declaring that all laws of
England applied to the colony, and holding that it was there-
fore unnecessary to re-enact that famous statute in their
Province. " By those gentlemen's permission that say so, it is
expressed in our grants from the Crown that the inhabitants
of Carolina shall be of the King's allegiance, which makes
them subject to the laws of England."
Here we have a proprietary Province, of a constitution
analogous in so many respects to Maryland, in controversy
over this same matter; but the parties we find taking exactly
opposite positions from that which they assumed, respectively.
in Maryland. However, the Proprietors here receded from
their position, and, in 1712, approved an Act which adopted
the English common law and such statutes as were deemed
applicable to the Constitution of the Province." A somewhat
similar law was passed in North Carolina, in 1715.
Of more direct bearing upon the course of events in Mary-
land is the experience of her northern neighbor. Pennsylvania,
where legal controversies similar to that which we have to
follow in Maryland were taking place just a few years before
1722. The efficacy of the English statute law, in comparison
with that of local legislation, came up in connection with the
unwillingness of the Quakers to take an oath, and their claim
that an affirmation was equally valid for legal proceedings."
More closely analogous to the issues developed in Mary-
land, however, was the evolution of the courts of judicature in
Pennsylvania. In the course of a contest between Governor
18 McCrady E. The History of South Carolina under the Pro-
prietary Government, pp. 247-8, 517ff. Reinsch, English Common
Law. pp. 49-50.
18 Shepherd, W. R.: History of Proprietary Government in Penn-
sylvania, Columbia University Studies in History. Economics and
Public Law, Vol. VI., pp. 351-369.

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Sioussat's The English Statutes in Maryland, 1903
Volume 195, Page 25   View pdf image (33K)
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