Judicial System Of Texas : Enduring Laws Of The Republic Of Texas

One book and one Treatise

The jurisprudence of Texas is in many respects different from that of any other country. It is a resultant of the combined forces of the Civil and Common law. For centuries these two great systems of jurisprudence have controlled the governments of Southern and Western Europe, the Civil law having its sway over the Latin, and the Common law, over the Anglo-Saxon and kindred peoples. In connection with them in their several jurisdictions has grown up the splendid civilization of Europe. As these several European nations established their colonies in the New World each colony brought with it the traditions, habits, and character of its parent state; and these influences of the Old World determined, to a large extent, the character of the several social and governmental institutions of the New.

England was a Common law country, and in all her colonies, that system was the base of colonial jurisprudence. Spain held most rigidly to the ancient Roman or Civil law and that system was the base of the jurisprudence of all her American dependencies. Neither system could be transplanted intact. The natural and social conditions in the two hemispheres were too different, and each code of laws received characteristic modifications, first by those in authority in Europe, and subsequently by the colonists and their descendants. The respective characteristics of the English and Spanish peoples manifested themselves here and the changes in the English Common law by the Anglo-Americans were much greater and more fundamental than those wrought by the Spanish-Americans in the Spanish Civil law.

Texas furnished a meeting place and battle ground for these two peoples and their institutions.