Statute

n. An act of the legislature; a particular law enacted and established by the will of the legislative department of government, expressed with the requisite formalities.

In foreign and civil law. Any particular municipal law or usage, though resting for its authority on judicial decisions, or the practice of nations. 2 Kent, Comm. 456. The whole municipal law of a particular state, from whatever source arising. Story, Confl. Laws, § 12. "Statute" also sometimes means a kind of bond or obligation of record, being an abbreviation for "statute merchant" or "statute staple." See infra.

— Affirmative statute. See Affirmative.

— Declaratory statute. See Declaratory.

— Enabling statute. See that title.

— Expository statute. See that title.

— General statute. A statute relating to the whole community, or concerning nil persons generally, as distinguished from a private or special statute. 1 Bl. Comm. 85, 86 ; 4 Coke, 75a.

— Local statute. Such a stafute as has for its object the interest of some particular locality, as the formation of a road, the alteration of the course of a river, the formation of a public market in ,a particular district, etc.

— Negative statute. A stafute expressed in negative terms; a statute which prohibite a thing from being done, or declares what shall not be done

— Penal statute. See Penal.

— Perpetual statute. One which is to remnin in force without limitation as to lime; one which contains no provision for its repeal, abrogation, or expiration at any future time.

— Personal statutes. In foreign and modem civil law. Those statutes which have principally for their object the person, and treat of property only incidentally. Story, Confl. Laws, § 13. A personal statute, in this sense of the term, is a law, ordinance, regnia-tion, or custom, the disposition of which affects the person, and clothes him with a capacity or incapacity, which he does not change with every change of abode, but which, upon principles of justice and policy, he is assumed to carry with him wherever he goes. 2 Kent, Comm. 456. The term is also applied to statutes which, instead of being general, are confined in their operation to one person or group of persons. Bank of Columbia v. Walker, 14 Lea (Tenn.) 808; Saul v. Creditors, 5 Mart. N. S. (La.) 591, 16 Am. Dec. 212.

— Private statute. A statute which operates only upon particular persons, and private concerns. 1 Bl. Comm. 86. An act which relates to certain individuals, or to particular classes of men. Dwar. St. 629; State v. Chambers, 93 N. C. 600.

— Public statute. A statute enacting a universal rule which regains the whole community, as distinguished from one which concerns only particular individuals and affects only their private rights. See Co.de Civ. Proc. Cad. § 1898.

— Real statutes. In the civil law. Statutes which have principally for their object property, and which do not speak of persons, except in relation to property. Story, Co.nfl. Laws, § 13; Saul v. His Creditors, 5 Mart. N. S. (La.) 582, 16 Am. Dec. 212.

— Remedial statute. See Remedial.

— Revised statutes. A body of stafutes which have been revised, collected, arsanged in order, and re-enacted as a whole; this ls the legal title of the collections of compiled laws of several of the states and also of the United States.

— Special statute. One which operates only upon particular persons and private concerns. 1 Bl. Comm. 86. Distinguished from a general or public statute.

— Statute fair. In English law. A fair at which laborers of bath sexes stood and offered themselves for hire; sometimes calied also "Mop."

— Statute-merchant. In English law. A security for a debt acknowledged to be due, entered into bsfore the chief magistrate of some trading town, pursuant to the statute 13 Edw. I. De Mercatoribus, by which not only the body of the debtor might be imprisoned, and his goods seized in satisfaction of the debt, but also his lands might be delivered to the creditor till out of the rents and profits of them the debt be satisfied. 2 Bl. Comm. 160. Now fallen into disuse. 1 Steph. Comm. 287. See Yates v. People, 6 Johns. (N. Y.) 404.

— Statute of accumulations. In English law. The statute 39 & 40 Geo. III. c. 98, forbidding the accumulation, beyond a certain period, of property settled by deed or will.

— Statute of allegiance de facto. An act of 11 iHen. VII. c. 1, requiring subjects to give their allegiance to the actual king for the time being, and protecting them in so doing.

— Statute of distributions. See Distribution.

— Statute of Elizabeth. In English law. The stafute 13 Eliz. c. 5, against conveyances made in fraud of creditors.

— Statute of frauds. See Frauds, Statute of.

— Statute of Gloucester. In English law. The stafute 6 Edw. I. c. 1, A. D. 1278. It takes its name from the place of its enactment, and was the first statute giving costs in actions. 3 Bl. Comm. 399

— Statute of laborers. See Laborer.

— Statute of limitations. See Limitation.

— Statute of uses. See Use.

— Statute of wills. In English law. The stafute 32 Hen. VIII. a 1, which enacted that all persons being seised in fee-simple (except femes covert, infants, idiots, and persons of non-sane memory might, by will and testament in writing, devise to any other person, except to bodies corporate, two-thirds of their lands, tenements, and hereditaments, held in chivalry, and the whole of those held in socage. 2 Bl. Comm. 375.

— Statute roll. A roll upon which an English statute, after receiving the royal assent, was formerly entered.

— Statute staple. See Staple.

— Statutes at large. Stafutes printed in full and in the order of their enactment, in a collected form, as distinguished from any digest, revision, abridgment, or compilation of them. Thus the volumes of "United States Stafutes at Large," contain ali the acts of congress in their order. The name is also given to an authentic collection of the various statutes which have been passed by i the British parliament from very early times to the present day. Statutes in derogation of common law must he strictly construed. Cooley, Const. LIm. 75, note; Arthurs, Appeal of, 1 Grant Cas. (Pa.) 57.

v. In old Scotch law. To ordain, establish or decree.