An Alphabetical Digest of the Public Statute Law of South-Carolina

The circuit courts were invested with complete, original and final jurisdiction; new districts were erected; and the powers and duties of the judges more particularly declared. The county courts were new modelled: the rights of primogeniture were abolished, and also the fictitious proceedings in the action of ejectment: A more equal distribution of the estates of persons dying intestate was prescribed, and the action of trespass to try the titles to land, combining the action for mesne profits, substituted in lieu of the action of ejectment. Salaries and fees were established, and commissioners appointed to adjust and settle accounts of the treasury department.

In 1794, acts were passed to organize the militia in conformity with the act of Congress for establishing a uniform militia throughout the United States.

Many other laws were made of considerable importance, (but too tedious to enumerate,) in 1794, and the succeeding years, down to 1798. At this time the admin. istration of justice was extremely tedious and defective. The jurisdiction of the county courts was very limited; and in many of them justice was dispensed in a very loose and imperfect manner. The accumulation of business in the circuit' eourts had greatly encreased; and the manner of despatching it, was not always the best that might be practised to answer the purposes of public justice, and give satisfaction to the people.

In order to establish a uniform and more convenient system of judicature, a bill was brought forward in the legislature, for instituting district courts, in the several counties of the state, and in small sections of that part of the state wherein county courts were not established, and to arrange those courts into several circuits or ridings.

The most zealous and able advocates of this project, were William Falconer, esq. a member of the house of representatives from Chesterfield, and William Marshall, esquire, late one of the judges of the courts of equity, a member of the senate. was carried, and passed into a law.

This law was afterwards revised and amended in 1799, and county courts which had been retained in the former act, with very limited powers, was now for ever abolished. A supplementary act was passed the same year, providing for every case that might occur under the various changes which were directed to take place in the judiciary system. The appointment of additional judges and circuit solicitors were provided for; courts of ordinary were established in each district; and many other important regulations adopted.

An act passed the same year to establish the office of comptroller of the treasury. In 1801, an act was passed to establish a college at Columbia; and the sum of fifty thousand dollars was appropriated for erecting suitable buildings; also, the annual sum of six thousand dollars, for the purpose of paying the salaries of the officers of the college, and other purposes. In addition to this, an extensive parcel of land, in an elevated situation, was bestowed by the legislature, for the site of the college edifices.

In the same year, a court of inferior jurisdiction was established in the city of Charleston. The court of wardens had been abolished a few years before.

By an act of 1805, original grants of land were declared to be valid, though wanting the great seal of the state; and the little seal was directed to be thereafter affixed to grants.

In 1808, the state was divided into equity districts and circuits; and the courts of equity were directed to be held by one judge in the respective districts. And a court of appeals for the court of equity was established, to be holden twice a year at both Columbia and Charleston.

In 1809, an act passed ratifying former acts amending the constitution, and reforming the arrangement of the representation in the legislature, which acts had passed in 1808. Sheriffs were directed to be elected by the people of each district, and the judges of the law courts were vested with power to appoint guardians to minors, and in cases of ideocy and lunacy.

An act of 1811, requires the judges respectively to give their reasons in writing, in all cases submitted to them in the constitutional court of appeals. And the judges of the courts of equity are enjoined to observe a similar rule in cases of appeal decided by them.

In 1812. an act passed against duelling; and another establishing the bank of

the state.

In 1813, the dispute with the state of North-Carolina, concerning boundary, was finally settled, and an act was passed on the subject, confirming the treaty made by the commissioners appointed by the two states to adjust the dispute.

To conclude this imperfect and rude sketch of our legal history, the autho hopes he may be permitted, in extenuation of his failures, in the compilation of the Digest, as well as in this attempt to trace the civil jurisprudence of the state from it origin, to say, in the language of Dr. Johnson, that to have attempted much i always laudable, even when the enterprize is above the strength that undertake it" and he presumes, however extravagant it may appear, to prefer a wish, tha our laws may hereafter be revised, corrected and improved, in such a manner tha they may attain that perfection, which the virtuous Sidney (the innocent victim o a vile court and profligate king) predicates of law in general-"Established fo the good of the people, which no passion can disturb :-void of desire and fear, lus and anger-mens sine affectu, mind without passion, written reason, retaining som measure of the divine perfection:-not enjoining that which pleases a weak frai man, but, without any regard to persons, commanding that which is good, and pun ishing evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low :-deaf, inexorable, inflexible." "Of law" (says the excellent Hooker, in his book of ecclesiastical politý "no less can be acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the har mony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage; the least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power.

A LIST OF JUDGES AND ATTORNEY GENERALS.

JUDGES,

Edmund Bohun, chief justice; appointed in 1696; died the same year.

Nicholas Trott, about the years 1712-1718. He was also judge of the provincial court of vice admiralty in 1715.

Richard Allien, chief justice; chosen by the legislature in place of Nicholas Trott, who was superseded.

Robert Wright, chief justice; appointed in 1730; died in 1739.

Thomas Dale, assistant judge of the courts of general sessions and common pleas;

appointed March 5th, 1736. appointed April 8th, 1737.

appointed same time. appointed April 20th, 1737.

Thomas Dale, chief justice; appointed in 1739, October 17th; superseded in Nov. Benjamin Whitaker, chief justice; appointed November 7th, 1739; removed in 1749, being paralytic.

Isaac Mazyek, assistant judge; appointed February 5th, 1740.

William Bull, junr.

Robert Yonge,

Othniel Beale,