Americanization of the Common Law

Few attempts have been made to trace the emergence of modern American law from its colonial antecedents during the half-century following the American Revolution. The present monograph makes a limited attempt to do so by studying in depth the legal development during the period from 1760 to 1830 of one state -- Massachusetts. Since this study is one of a single state whose development was in many ways unique, broad conclusions about the legal history of the entire United States are, of course, unwarranted. Nonetheless, the work of other scholars suggests that the trend of legal development in Massachusetts was sufficiently similar to that of other states that conclusions drawn from Massachusetts evidence can provide working hypotheses for studying how the legal system of prerevolutionary America was transformed into the legal system of today. - p. 3.