Wow, really? After all your squawking about truncated quotes, you post that and don't even note with ellipses where you've cut pieces out? Let's read the whole passage:
What can he mean by saying that the Common law is not secured by the new Constitution, though it has been adopted by the State Constitutions. The common law is nothing more than the unwritten law, and is left by all the constitutions equally liable to legislative alterations. I am not sure that any notice is particularly taken of it in the Constitutions of the States. If there is, nothing more is provided than a general declaration that it shall continue along with other branches of law to be in force till legally changed. The Constitution of Virga. drawn up by Col Mason himself, is absolutely silent on the subject. An ordinance passed during the same Session, declared the Common law as heretofore & all Statutes of prior date to the 4 of James I to be still the law of the land, merely to obviate pretexts that the separation from G. Britain threw us into a State of nature, and abolished all civil rights and obligations. Since the Revolution every State has made great inroads & with great propriety in many instances on this monarchical code. The "revisal of the laws" by a Committee of wch. Col. Mason was a member, though not an acting one, abounds with such innovations. The abolition of the right of primogeniture, which I am sure Col. Mason does not disapprove, falls under this head.See the bolded part? He's saying that the separation from G.Britain did not throw us into a state of nature--i.e., lawless. If it didn't, then, clearly some body of laws (along with rights and obligations) applied after the separation. What were they?
Let's look at George Mason's letter that this is in response to:
There is no Declaration of Rights; and the Laws of the general Government being paramount to the Laws & Constitution of the several States, the Declarations of Rights in the separate States are no Security. Nor are the people secured even in the Enjoyment of the Benefits of the common-Law which stands here upon no other Foundation than it's having been adopted by the respective Acts forming the Constitutions of the several States.What is his concern? That the benefits provided by the common law are not explicitly secured by the Constitution. It's to this concern that Madison says "What could the Convention have done?" Either the Constitution explicitly adopts all of English common law and in so doing brings along a lot of irrelevant and unwanted crap, plus thereby negates the alterations the states had made; or it lists everything that would be adopted and thereby becomes "a digest of laws, instead of a Constitution."
So if you read Madison's whole quote in conjunction with the letter he was responding to, you can see that the point of the conversation was not to assert that the English common law was no longer in force--rather, the opposite. The English common law--"unwritten law"--could be altered by specific written laws, and the state governments had been doing so. But it's clear to both men that the intent of the Convention was for English common law to be retained in its rights and benefits as well as its restrictions, except where explicitly altered by the states. Independence did not leave us in a "state of nature."
Pr*ck. I provided the link so you could read the whole thing yourself. What I didn't post doesn't materially alter the meaning as did the section Jeff intentionally cut out of John Bingham's statement. (Which in fact, completely REVERSED the meaning.) Jeff is a pain in the @ss, and so I took a shortcut, figuring you could read the whole thing yourself if you wanted to. I presumed you had enough intelligence to notice the space between the excerpts and could surmise their purpose. I obviously overestimated you.
See the bolded part? He's saying that the separation from G.Britain did not throw us into a state of nature--i.e., lawless. If it didn't, then, clearly some body of laws (along with rights and obligations) applied after the separation. What were they?
Why on earth do you regard that passage as significant? Civil and Criminal laws which were not expressly abrogated by statute remained in effect. Madison says that very thing in the part I quoted. His larger point remains; The United States did not adopt, en masse, the common law of England.
I read the rest of your comment and think you are just producing noise. I don't even understand how you think you have a point to convey. I'm not going to spend any more time trying to figure out what you are trying to say.