Adoption of English Law In Maryland

Garrett Power, University of Maryland School of Law, has published Adoption of English Law in Maryland as University of Maryland Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2011-24. Here is the abstract.

 

It served as an axiom of Maryland’s constitutional history that settlers carried with them the "rights of Englishmen" when they crossed the Atlantic. In 1642 the Assembly of Maryland Freemen declared Maryland’s provincial judges were to follows the law of England. Maryland’s 1776 Declaration of Independence left a legal lacuna - what were to be the laws and public institutions of this newly created sovereign entity? This paper considers the manner in which the sovereign state of Maryland filled the void.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.