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To: Maelstrom
dear roflmao... maelstrom...
go back you say? okay since you insist...

"Authorities for what is common law may therefore be as well cited, as for any part of the Lex Scripta, and there is no better instance of the necessity of holding the judges and writers to a declaration of their authorities than the present; where we detect them endeavoring to make law where they found none, and to submit us at one stroke to a whole system, no particle of which has its foundation in the common law.

" For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or Lex Scripta.

"This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686.

"Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it.

"If it ever was adopted, therefore, into the common law, it must have been between the introduction of Christianity and the date of the Magna Charta. But of the laws of this period we have a tolerable collection by Lambard and Wilkins, probably not perfect, but neither very defective; and if any one chooses to build a doctrine on any law of that period, supposed to have been lost, it is incumbent on him to prove it to have existed, and what were its contents.

"These were so far alterations of the common law, and became themselves a part of it. But none of these adopt Christianity as a part of the common law. If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians, and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are all able to find among them no such act of adoption, we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that "Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."

... Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson's letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, from Monticello, February 10, 1814.

Yours is a failed argument to the inclusion of Christianity into the Common Law... I did go back which is WHY I know, and now you know, WHY such a false position is NOT mine.

Unless of course you probably also believe jefferson was not a "true american or founder or president." whatever. you side with 'grandstander' roy... and I will have to side with Jefferson.

187 posted on 08/25/2003 3:01:26 PM PDT by Robert_Paulson2 (roll the stone away... the tomb is empty... and there is no statue of the ten commandments inside.)
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To: Robert_Paulson2
No...
...Mine is the use of the 10 Commandments as the foundation of law.

YOURS is the allegation that this constitutes the adoption of Christianity as common law.

It's not even Jefferson's claim. His traces back the establishment of the Anglican Church as the State Religion.

Yours for better scholarship.
192 posted on 08/26/2003 5:22:01 AM PDT by Maelstrom (To prevent misinterpretation or abuse of the Constitution:The Bill of Rights limits government power)
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