For these purposes we now constitute ourselves an agricultural society of the county of Albemarle, and adopt as rules for present observance, the principles before stated.
Our further organization shall be a President, Secretary and Treasurer, to be chosen at the first stated meeting to be held in every year, by a majority of the members present, provided those present be a majority of the existing members, and to continue in office until another election shall be made.
There shall be four stated meetings in ever year, to wit: on the first Mondays in January, April, July and October.
The place of meeting, and rules of the society, shall be established, revoked or altered, and new members admitted, at any of the stated meetings, by a majority of the attending members, if they be a majority of those present, not being less than one-fourth of the whole. And, lest the powers given to the greater quorum of a majority of the whole, should at any time remain unexercised from insufficient attendance, the same may be exercised by a resolution of the lesser quorum of one-fourth, passed at a stated meeting: provided it be confirmed at the next stated meeting, by either a greater or lesser quorum, and in the meantime have no force.
Those who for two whole years shall not have attended any stated meeting shall, ipso facto, cease to be members. And to ascertain at all times who are the existing members, the names of those attending every meeting shall be regularly entered in the journals of the society.
The President shall preside at all meetings when present, and when absent, a president pro tempore may be appointed for that purpose by those present.
XLV.
Observations on the force and obligation of the common law in the United States, on the occasion of Hardin's case, in Kentucky. November 11th, 1812.
The common law of England is that system of law which was established in that country anterior to the Magna Charta, 9 H. 3, before which period no statutes are extant of record. It is used in contradistinction to the term statute law, which comprehends all the laws passed by their Parliament from the Magna Charta down to this day.
The term common law is used also in contradistinction to the chancery, as when we speak of the doctrines or courts of the common law, the doctrines or courts of chancery, and then include the statute law also. In which sense the term is used, must always depend on the subject matter.
On the settlement of the colonies now composing the United States, and the establishment of a legislature in each of them, that legislature, in some cases, finding that the enacting a complete code of laws, which should reach every transaction needing legislative regulation, would be far beyond their time and abilities, adopted, by an express act of their own, the laws of England as they stood at that date, comprehending the common law, statutes to that period, and the chancery law. In other cases, instead of adopting them by an express statute of their own, they considered themselves as having brought with them, and been, even on their passage, under the constant obligation of the laws of the mother country, and on their arrival they continued to practice them without any act of adoption, which practice or usage is evidence that there was an adoption by general consent. In the case of Connecticut, they did not adopt the common law of England at all as their basis, but declared by an act of their own, that the law of God, as it stood revealed in the Old and New Testament, should be the basis of their laws, to be subject to such alterations as they should make. In all the cases where the common law, or laws of England, were adopted either expressly or tacitly, the legislatures held of course, and exercised the power of making additions and alterations.