quieting statutes

From as early a date as the year 1705, Virginia has never been without an act of limitation. And no class of laws is more universally sanctioned by the practice of nations, and the consent of mankind, than laws which give peace and confidence to the actual possessor and tiller of the soil... All the reasonable purposes of justice are subserved, if the courts of a state have been left open to the prosecution of suits for such a time as may reasonably raise a presumption in the occupyer of the soil that the fruits of his labour are effectually secured beyond the chance of litigation. Interest reipublicae ut finis sit litium; — and vigilantibus non dormientibus succurrit lex; are not among the least favoured of the maxims of the law.