1449. COMMON LAW, United States Law and.—[continued].
I read the sixth chapter
of your book with interest and satisfaction, on
the question whether the common law (of
England) makes a part of the laws of our
General Government. That it makes more
or less a part of the laws of the States is,
I suppose, an unquestionable fact. Not by
birthright, * * * but by adoption. But, as to
the General Government, the Virginia Report
on the Alien and Sedition laws, has so
completely pulverized this pretension that
nothing new can be said on it. Still, seeing
the judges of the Supreme Court (I recollect,
for example, Ellsworth and Story) had been
found capable of such paralogism, I was glad
to see that the Supreme Court had given it
up. In the case of Libel in the United States
District Court of Connecticut, the rejection of
it was certainly sound; because no law of the
General Government had made it an offence.
But such a case might, I suppose, be sustained
in the State courts which have State laws
against libels. Because as to the portions of
power within each State assigned to the General
Government, the President is as much the
Executive of the State, as their particular
governor is in relation to State powers.—
To Mr. Goodenow. Washington ed. vii, 251.
(M.
1822)
