In America, the body of English legal doctrine which formed the foundation of the law administered in those States settled from
England and in the later States formed by settlement or division from the original States, and the later development of that law in America down to modern times. there was no federal common law at the onset of our legal …show more content…
The common law was received by the states and was to be applied in the federal courts as altered, interpreted, or preserved by the state courts. The Federal Constitution by implication imposed limitations on the common law, primarily through the first ten amendments. Article VI, which designates "the Constitution; and the laws made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made under the authority of the United States," to be the supreme law of the land, did not, however, diminish the force of the retained common law.(P.