In a few instances we did not adopt their laws.
For example, in the rule applicable to the descent of real property, the Americans struck out the doctrine of primogeniture, but substantially adopted the entire body of English law appertaining to real estate. The law forms; the procedure; the principles applicable to the rights of persons and things; criminal law, equity jurisprudence, {137} were taken en bloc, with exceptions too trifling to be mentioned.
The rules, principles, and forms of English jurisprudence were so fitted to the spirit and genius of our people, that (with but several trifling exceptions, such as a few small treatises on Justices' Courts and Sheriffs), after the adoption of our Constitution, there was not a single elementary treatise of American Law published in the United States until 1826—at which time Kent's Commentaries made its appearance, and it is remarkable that, as legal science has advanced in this country, the prejudices of its professors have softened towards the country from which its materials have been chiefly drawn.
VII.—THE SAME TENDENCY AND METHODS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND WORSHIP
In both the British Empire and the United States, there is an official, and an almost universal, recognition of a superhuman power to whom allegiance and service are regarded as justly due. This is religion in a broad, comprehensive sense.
In each nation we find instances of cruel and unjustifiable religious intolerance and persecution; but the tendency has always been towards liberality and religious freedom.
In no other nation upon the globe does religion flourish in all its forms and sects as in these countries.
Without agreement or imitation, we find the {138} march of religious freedom keeping about the same pace in each nation.
What does this prove? The same religious impulses, thoughts, freedom, education, and growth; a family physically disunited, with one religious conception moulding their convictions in the same groove of thought. In England and the United States, for example, the Catholic religion flourishes and expands even more than in those countries where it is the established and official worship! Every branch of Protestantism is encouraged and grows in this congenial soil of English liberty. Religious independence and toleration are conspicuously planted in the heart of every true Anglo-Saxon. We can point with pride, on the one hand, to the toleration of rationalistic views upon religious subjects; and, on the other, to the growth and expansion of Christianity, and their joint influence upon our progress and civilisation.
Anglo-Saxon unity, strength, and progress owe, perhaps, as much to Christianity in all its forms, as to any other cause. It ought to be one of the most potent influences towards the unification of the Anglo-Saxon people. No nobler topic can occupy the attention of the pulpit.