Local usage or legislation might, within certain limits, depart
from the common law and even from the political institutions of
England.

There were limits to such departure, and a colonial statute or
judgment which transgressed them could be annulled or set aside
by a higher authority.

This higher authority might be judicial or political, or one
which shared both judicial and political functions.

* * * * *



CHAPTER II


THE SEPARATION OF THE JUDICIAL POWER FROM THE
LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE IN AMERICAN
CONSTITUTIONS


From the colonial system of legislatures by which all the powers
of government were at times exercised to the modern American
State, with its professed division of them into three parts, and
assignment of each to a distinct department, was a long step.

So far as the United States were concerned, the weakness of the