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ASSISTANT JUdge of the CIRCUIT COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

POTIUS IGNORATIO JURIS LITIGIOSA EST, QUAM SCIENTIA.

CIC. DE LEGIBUS. DIAL. I.

WASHINGTON CITY:

PUBLISHED FOR JOHN CONRAD AND CO. PHILADELPHIA; M. AND J. CONRAD AND CO. BALTIMORE; RAPINE, CONRAD AND CO. WASHINGTON CITY; SOMERVILLE AND CONRAD, PETERSBURG; AND BON◄ SAL, CONRAD AND CO, NORFOLK.

L12018

SEP 1 1 1936

District of Columbia....to wit,

L. S.

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on this twenty-fixth day of June, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and four, and in the twenty-eighth year of American Independence,

William Cranch, of the said district, hath deposited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit: "Reports of Cafes, argued and adjudged "in the Supreme Court of the United States in August and De"cember Terms 1801, and February Term 1803." In conformity to the act of the Congrefs of the United States, entitled "An act "for the encouragement of learning, by fecuring the copies sof maps, "charts and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies "during the times therein mentioned."

G. DENEALE,

Clerk of the District of Columbias

PREFACE.

MUCH of that uncertainty of the law, which is

fo frequently, and perhaps so justly, the fubject of com. plaint in this country, may be attributed to the want of American reports.

Many of the caufes, which are the fubject of litigation in our courts, arife upon circumstances peculiar to our fituation and laws, and little information can be derived from English authorities to lead to a correct decifion.

Uniformity, in fuch cases, can not be expected where the judicial authority is shared among such a vaft number of independent tribunals, unless the decisions of the various courts are made known to each other. Even in the fame court, analogy of judgment can not be maintained if its adjudications are fuffered to be forgotten. It is therefore much to be regretted that fo few of the gentlemen of the bar have been willing to undertake the task of reporting.

In a government which is emphatically ftiled a government of laws, the leaft poffible range ought to be left for the discretion of the judge. Whatever tends to render the laws certain, equally tends to limit that difcretion; and perhaps nothing conduces more to that object than the publication of reports. Every cafe decided is a check upon the judge. He can not decide a fimilar case differently, without ftrong reasons, which, for his

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