Obsolete

Is sometimes applied to laws, to signify that, although never formally repealed, they have become inoperative. The general impression conveyed by it probably is, that great lapse of time, during which a statute has never been enforced, may deprive it of efficacy; but there is good reason to doubt whether 'from mere lapse of time the courts can assume to discard a statute as no longer binding. The fact that no one has invoked it for however many years scarcely warrants, taken alone, repudiating the statute, when at last it is invoked. There should be some general change in manners and customs; some long and well-settled practice inconsistent with the law; some circumstances co-operating with lapse of time, — to authorize courts to pronounce laws obsolete. A statute making it the duty of the commissioner of pensions to report annually the money paid out in pensions to revolutionary soldiers might well be deemed obsolete when revolutionary soldiers were all dead; a statute directing militia-men to attend for drill, provided with one extra flint to each musket, might well be deemed obsolete when flint-locks went out of use; a statute prescribing that the money in a treasury should be annually weighed would be properly considered obsolete, after the funds came, under authority of a later legal-tender law, to consist of paper money of various denominations. In any such case, a court might well refuse to enforce a penalty prescribed in the statute for failure to obey it, although the statute had never been repealed; on the gi'ound that by change of circiunstances, gradually arising through great lapse of time, the performance of the duty had become impracticable or useless, without occasion ever arising to suggest to the legislature the propriety of a formal repeal. But this is probably the true ground and limit of any American doctrine of holding laws obsolete. The case should be a very strong one to warrant a court in setting aside The word obsolete, written on the margin of his will by a testator, but not signed by him nor by any person for him in the mode prescribed by statute, does rot operate as a revocation of the will.

Lewis V. Lewis, 2 Watts %■ S. 455.