Succeed

It is difficult to give concise definitions of succeed, and of its derivatives, succession and successor, which shall embody the various meanings in which they are used, yet properly discriminate them from " inherit," " inheritance," and "heir." Corporations are said to have perpetual succession; and it is one of their best-recognized and most important attributes. The successors of a corporation are spoken of as corresponding to the heirs of a natural person. In Louisiana, succession is used tech- I. nically and frequently in a large sense, embracing the whole subject of the right, gations, of the deceased to his heirs; and including estate, rights, and charges •which a person leaves after his death, ■whether the property exceeds the charges or the charges exceed the property, or whether he has left only charges without property. Suits involving the settlement of a decedent estate, or brought on behalf of a decedent estate, are entitled " The succession of So and So against; " and in like manner the succession is named as the, defendant, when a creditor seeks to charge the estate. The succession not only includes the rights and obligations of the deceased as they exist at the time of his death, but all that has accrued thereto since the opening of the succession, as also of the new charges to which it becomes subject. As thus employed, it seems to involve the whole right of the kindred of a deceased person to take his estate, whether real or personal, and their liability incident thereto. In Englis Ti laws of taxation, succession has a use quite analogous to this last. The succession — that is, the right of the heirs and next of kin to take — is liable to a duty or tax; and the provisions of the succession-duty act defining the terms (Stat. 16 & 17 Vict. ch. 51, §§ 2, 54) declare that every disposition of property, by reason whereof any person has or shall become beneficially entitled to any property, or the income thereof, upon the death of any person; and every devolution by law of any beneficial interest in property or the income thereof, upon the death of any person, to any other person, — is to be deemed to confer a ' ' succession "on the person entitled by reason of any such disposition or devolution; and the term successor is to denote the person so entitled; and the term predecessor is to denote the settlor, disponor, testator, obligor, ancestor, or other person from whom the interest of the successor is derived. With reference to the crown of England, the two terms have been used almost interchangeably; it is common to say that a person succeeds to the throne, or inherits it. term. The son is not said (when words ai'e technically used according to common law) to succeed to his father's lands. With reference to real property held in trust, inherit would be incorrect. Succession is the technical term for the transmission of trust property. Trustees succeed one another; and a trust-deed is properly drawn to the trustee named and.his successors. With reference to transmission of corporate existence and franchises, succeed is, again, the technical term. The word successors is not necessary, in a deed, to convey a fee to a corporation aggregate. Congregational Society v. Stark, 34 Vt. 24,3. In grants to corporations aggregate, the word successors, though usually inserted, is not necessary to convey a fee-simple; for, admitting that such a simple grant be strictly only an estate for life, yet as the corporation, unless of limited duration, never dies, such estate for life is perpetual. See Union Canal Co. v. Young, 1 Whart. 410, 425; Overseers of Poor of Boston V. Sears, 22 Pick. 122. Succession to the crown. The law of succession in Anglo-Saxon times was a mixture of the hereditary with the elective principles, the crown descending within the royal family, but not invariably to the individual pointed out by the strict rules of descent; for in very many instances the wittenagemote seems to have approved as a successor an able uncle in preference to the infant son of Iiis brother; e.g., Alfred excluded the son of his brother Ethelred, and Athelstan (although illegitimate) excluded the sons of his brother Edward the elder; and, again, the sons of Edmund I. were postponed to their uncle Edred, and in their turn they excluded the sous of Edred. The frequency of these instances proves that the principle of election was as strong as that of hereditary descent, if, in fact, the former principle was not the stronger of the two. This mode of succession survived into the Anglo-Norman times, although the elective principle was much impaired. Thus, upon the death of William I., his son William succeeded in exclusion of Robert; and, again, upon the death of William II., his brother Henry I. succeeded, in exclusion also of Robert. Subsequently, however, the rules of descent became iixed and strictly hereditary. It is true tliat Jolm, who was the fifth son of Henry II., excluded his elder brother Geoffrey's son Arthur; but John appears to have done so with difficulty, and by means of artifice, for he claimed under a devise of the crown from Richard I., who was elder than Geofdevisable. However, upon the death of John the crown descended upon Henry III., although he was a minor of nine years or so, and the subsidiary principle of a regency (under the Earl of Pembroke) was resorted to; so that the law of hereditary succession to the crown appears by a somewhat natural coincidence to have become established at the same time and in the same reign that the principles of primogeniture and representation were established in the matter of the succession to real property. The crown of England has since descended according to the strictest rules of primogeniture and representation. However, the doctrine of the king's capacity to devise the crown was revived in the reign of Henry VIII., that monarch having attempted to devise the crown, and having also made a purported devise thereof in the twenty-eighth, thirty-second, and thirty-tifth years of his reign, under enabling statutes passed in those years, in such manner as that the same should descend upon his decease otherwise than the law of inheritance pointed out; that is to eay, to the issue of Anne Boleyn {i.e. Elizabeth) in exclusion of the issue of Queen Catharine {i.e. Mary), and subsequently to his son by Jane Seymour {i.e. Edward VI.), with remainder to the issue of the younger daughter of Henry VII. {i.e. Mary of Suffolk, his sister), in exclusion of the issue of the elder daughter of Henry VII. {i.e. Margaret of Scotland, his sister). It is noteworthy, however, that all those attempts to alter the hereditary line of descent proved ineffectual, and that upon the death of Henry VIII. the crown descended successively to Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, and afterwards to James I., who was the great-grandson of Margaret, according to the strict principles of primogeniture and representation, and notwithstanding that there were at the time of each descent persons in existence who might have claimed under the devises before mentioned. However, although the principle of hereditary succession to the crown is now, and has long been, well established, still that principle is, or appears at any rate to be, subject to the constitutional maxim established at the revolution of 1688; namely, that the two houses of parliament may, with the consent of the people, but for reasons of overwhelming sufficiency, set aside or pass over the strict heir, and resort to the old principle of election within the royal family, and may even settle the descent of the crown by act of parliament, as was done, for example, in the bill of rights, 1689, and again in the act of settlement, 1701, the present Brunswick dynasty holding, and claiming to hold, under the lastmentioned act. Broum. Succession duty. A duty, varying chargeable with legacy duty, q. o. It chiefly applies to real propeity and leasehold interests. See Brown.