William E. Nelson is Judge Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law, New York University. He has been writing and teaching in the field of American legal history for nearly fifty years and is the author of many books, including The Roots of American Bureaucracy, Americanization of the Common Law, and The Fourteenth Amendment.
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From their inception, the colonies exercised a range of approaches to the law. While New England based its legal system around the word of God, Maryland followed the common law tradition, and New York adhered to Dutch law. Over time, though, the British c... SEE MORE