Editing Common law (section)

=== Propagation of the common law to the colonies and Commonwealth by reception statutes ===

{{anchor|CL_Reception_Statutes}}A [[reception statute]] is a statutory law adopted as a former British colony becomes independent, by which the new nation adopts (i.e. receives) pre-independence common law, to the extent not explicitly rejected by the [[legislative body]] or [[constitution]] of the new nation. Reception statutes generally consider the English common law dating prior to independence, and the precedent originating from it, as the default law, because of the importance of using an extensive and predictable body of law to govern the conduct of citizens and businesses in a new state. All U.S. states, with the partial exception of [[#Louisiana (1700s)|Louisiana]], have either implemented reception statutes or adopted the common law by judicial opinion.<ref>Edited [https://books.google.com/books?id=wl3KFBnC0P0C Thinking like a lawyer: an introduction to legal reasoning]{{Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} (Westview Press, 1996), pg. 10</ref>

Other examples of reception statutes in the United States, the states of the U.S., Canada and its provinces, and Hong Kong, are discussed in the [[reception statute]] article.

Yet, adoption of the common law in the newly independent United States was not a foregone conclusion, and was controversial. Immediately after the American Revolution, there was widespread distrust and hostility to anything British, and the common law was no exception.<ref name=BostonSocialLawCommonOrCivil /> Jeffersonians decried lawyers and their common law tradition as threats to the new republic. The Jeffersonians preferred a legislatively enacted civil law under the control of the political process, rather than the common law developed by judges that—by design—were insulated from the political process. The Federalists believed that the common law was the birthright of Independence: after all, the natural rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" were the rights protected by common law. Even advocates for the common law approach noted that it was not an ideal fit for the newly independent colonies: judges and lawyers alike were severely hindered by a lack of printed legal materials. Before Independence, the most comprehensive law libraries had been maintained by Tory lawyers, and those libraries vanished with the loyalist expatriation, and the ability to print books was limited. Lawyer (later President) John Adams complained that he "suffered very much for the want of books". To bootstrap this most basic need of a common law system—knowable, written law—in 1803, lawyers in Massachusetts donated their books to found a law library.<ref name=BostonSocialLawCommonOrCivil />  A Jeffersonian newspaper criticized the library, as it would carry forward "all the old authorities practiced in England for centuries back ... whereby a new system of jurisprudence [will be founded] on the high monarchical system [to] become the Common Law of this Commonwealth... [The library] may hereafter have a very unsocial purpose."<ref name=BostonSocialLawCommonOrCivil />

For several decades after independence, English law still exerted influence over American common law—for example, with ''[[Byrne v Boadle]]'' (1863), which first applied the [[res ipsa loquitur]] doctrine.