§11. The eleventh amendment was proposed at the first session of the third congress, March 5, 1794, and its ratification by the constitutional number of states was announced to congress by the president in a message dated January 8, 1798. This article prohibits a court of the United States from trying "any suit in law or equity commenced or prosecuted against one of the states by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state." This is intended to prevent a state from being sued in an original suit, by a private person, the citizen of another state.
§12. The twelfth and last amendment effects a change in the mode of electing the president and vice-president, and has been considered. (Chap. XXXIX, §4.) This amendment was proposed at the first session of the eighth congress, December 12, 1803, and was adopted by the requisite number of states in 1804, according to a public notice by the secretary of state, dated the 25th of September of the same year.
Rights of Persons. Personal Security; Personal Liberty; Religious Liberty; Liberty of Speech, and of the Press; Right of Property.
§1. Having taken a general view of the state governments and the government of the United States, and seen how wisely they are adapted to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty; we proceed to give a digest of the laws which more particularly define the rights and prescribe the duties of citizens, or by which their social and civil intercourse is to be regulated. These laws, it will be recollected, we have elsewhere called the _municipal_ or _civil_ laws, as distinguished from the _political_ or _fundamental_ law of the state. (Chap. III, §6.)
§2. These laws are of two kinds, the written or statute law, and the unwritten or common law. _Statute laws_ are those which are enacted by the legislature, and recorded in writing, and are usually collected and published in books. The word _statute_ is from the Latin _statuo_, to set, fix, or establish.
§3. The _common law_ is not a code of written laws enacted by a legislature, but consists of rules of action which have become binding from long usage and established custom. It is said to be founded in reason and the principles of justice. The common law of England was brought over by our ancestors, and established here before the revolution. Some of the states, in their constitutions, adopted after the revolution, declared it to be the law of their respective states; and it has continued to be law in all the states, and is still so considered, except such parts as have been altered or repealed by constitutional or legislative enactments, or by usage.