[DianaDrk]

Oh my God, you're worse than Oerdin. The only state with any trace of civil law left is Louisiana. And did that happen overnight? No. They specifically changed the laws to reflect these changes over time. How they changed these laws, and when - does have bearing wrt to the English Common law. They have to explicitly say that "this jurisdiction is under English Common Law", before that can be applied. Sure, it means going back to those boring things like the Texas constitution, and what happened during reconstruction - but these things have to be looked at!

Every other state is fully common law. Let me reiterate: It does not matter if a state was once a territory, or fully sovereign. Once they join the Union, all states are equal. It's only when they apply to join the Union that Congress can impose conditions on their application for statehood. Congress could deny admission to the Union because of the political beliefs of the constituency (as it often did balancing Free and Slave states prior to the Civil War), but once that state is in, it can't be ****ed with. Ok, but the fact that certain states did not have this imposed on them through the territorial process is significant. Because it means we have to go back and check and see when this became the law and how that law became the law in the first place. This, btw, is one of the reasons they passed the law back in 1880 banning polygamy outright in the territories.