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> "Forfeiture has its basis in British admiralty law"

British admiralty law is the bane of the American legal system:

"Next to revenue (taxes) itself, the late extensions of the jurisdiction of the admiralty are our greatest grievance. The American Courts of Admiralty seem to be forming by degrees into a system that is to overturn our Constitution and to deprive us of our best inheritance, the laws of the land. It would be thought in England a dangerous innovation if the trial, of any matter on land was given to the admiralty."

-- Jackson v. Magnolia, 20 How. 296 315, 342 (U.S. 1852)




This quote is not originally from 1852; it's from Boston in 1769, where the colonists were complaining about the abuses of George III. It has nothing to do with the modern American legal system; the US does not have separate admiralty courts and all maritime cases fall under the jurisdiction of federal district courts.


Admiralty courts used to only have jurisdiction over the sea as far as the tides ran up the rivers. Somehow that all changed. I think it first got extended to the Great Lakes because of action during the war of 1812. Then they took it up river and then covering all land drained by rivers and all wetlands. It was one way of getting Fed jurisdiction over state jurisdiction land. The Feds used to have only jurisdiction over forts, magazines and post offices inside states. This is why the Fed owns so little land in the first 13 states.


> to deprive us of our best inheritance, the laws of the land

"Laws of the land" refers to English Common Law, and if that's what the battle was to save, it's already lost. We've already wrecked our own common law system pretty thoroughly with the proliferation of bodies of civil law. Legislators can't leave our court systems well-enough alone.


The only time I've heard admiralty law mentioned is in conjunction with "freemen of the land" and other weirdness; what is the issue with it?

Is this anything to do with the Amistad case?


On the other hand Admiralty law is the basis for the freemen/sovcit kookery which is very funny (to watch from afar)




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