Succession

“ Thrown into technical language, the dependence of the various conceptions which contribute to the notion of a Will is thus expressed. A Will or Testament is an instrument by which the devolution of an inheritance is prescribed. Inheritance is a form of universal succession. A universal succession is a succession to a universitas juris, or university of rights and duties. Inverting this order we have therefore to inquire what is a universitas juris; what is a universal succession; what is the form of universal succession which is called an inheritance. ”

“ But in the course of nature this holy man will be gathered to his rest, and then his happy family may perhaps not live in such perfect harmony. He is now sixty-five years old, and has thirty sons, so that the question of succession is somewhat difficult, as there is no order of primogeniture. He has the right to choose an heir; and has been urged to do so by his English neighbors, to obviate all dispute to the succession. ”

“ Descent, or hereditary succession, is the title whereby a man on the death of his ancestor acquires his estate by right of representation, as his heir at law. An heir therefore is he upon whom the law casts the estate immediately on the death of the ancestor: and an estate, so descending to the heir, is in law called the inheritance. ”

“ This I take to be the true reason of the constant preference of the agnatic succession, or issue derived from the male ancestors, through all the stages of collateral inheritance; as the ability for personal service was the reason for preferring the males at first in the direct lineal succession. ”

“ I am much inclined to think, that the right succession or inheritance much depends on those connexions of the imagination, and that the relation to a former proprietor begetting a relation to the object, is the cause why the property is transferred to a man after the death of his kinsman. ”

“ It is also true that men's notions of the right of succession to property in general were becoming more strict and definite, and very possibly the importance of the succession involved in this particular case had its effect. ”

“ But the simplest plan of avoiding the difficulty was for the paterfamilias to regulate his succession by testament; and this was probably had recourse to, not so much for instituting a stranger heir when a man had no issue—according to patrician notions his duty then was to perpetuate his family by adopting a son—as for partitioning the succession when he had more children than one. ”

“ The vulgaris, pupillaris or exemplaris substitutio (consisting in the appointment of successive heirs in case of the death, incapacity or refusal of the heir first nominated) may have suggested the modern mode of giving enjoyment of property in succession. ”

“ When we see the miseries which are entailed on present and future generations by disputed claims to the crown, we shall more than ever value the principle of a regulated succession, subject to no challenge or controversy. ”

“ Often, too, the desired successor gains but envy for his share of the inheritance, and by his sudden death hands over the whole amount of the succession, which he has hardly entered upon, to strangers. ”

“ The one exception is that of royalty. Persons still are born to the throne; no one, not of the reigning family, can ever occupy it, and no one even of that family can, by any means but the course of hereditary succession, attain it. ”

“ As therefore hereditary succession is out of the question, with respect to the first generation, we have next to consider the character in which that generation acts towards the commencing generation and to all succeeding ones. ”

“ And every student of technical jurisprudence must have come across the same view, clothed in the language of a rather different school, which, in its rationale of this department of law, treats succession ex testamento as the mode of devolution which the property of deceased persons ought primarily to follow, and then proceeds to account for succession ab intestato as the incidental provision of the lawgiver for the discharge of a function which was only left unperformed through the neglect or misfortune of the deceased proprietor. ”

“ Limitations In Respect Of Succession Outside The Direct Line Of Descent.
The right of succession limited to the great-grandchild of the common ancestor. The Gortyn law quoted above in the previous section goes on:—
v. “If (a man or woman die and) they have no children, the deceased's brothers and brother's children or grandchildren shall have the property. If there are none of these, the deceased's sisters, their children or grandchildren. If there are none of these, to whom it descends of whatever grade they be, they shall inherit the property.” ”

“ A succession to one had no connection with the succession to another. Each succession was the assumption of a distinct personal relation, in which the successor was to be determined by the terms of the relation in question.
The persona which we are seeking to define is the estate. Every fee is a distinct persona, a distinct hereditas, or inheritance, as it has been called since the time of Bracton. We have already seen that it may be sustained by more [352] than one where there are several heirs, as well as by one, just as a corporation may have more or less members. ”

“ If some such method of fixing the succession is not adopted, if for example the succession to the throne is left to the determination of the monarch, who may choose as his successor a son not the eldest, or some other relative not the nearest eldest male relative the uncertainty as to the succession is almost certain to produce trouble. ”

“ Succession implies time; the lower members of a series of sedimentary rocks are certainly older than the upper; and when the notion of age was once introduced as the equivalent of succession, it was no wonder that correspondence in succession came to be looked upon as correspondence in age, or "contemporaneity." ”

“ The joinder of times is given to those who succeed to the place of another. Ulpian cites a like phrase from a jurisconsult of the time of the Antonines,—"to whose place I have succeeded by inheritance, or purchase, or any other right." /2/ Succedere in locum aliorum, like sustinere personam, is an expression of the Roman lawyers for those continuations of one man's legal position by another of which the type was the succession of heir to ancestor. ”

“ The cases of succession will be a relapse of certain goods used by the member of a community to that community and a consequent rearrangement of rights of usage. The law of succession will again be constructed on a personal basis, but this basis will be supplied not by the single individual whose death has had to be recorded but by some community or union to which this individual belonged. (3) The aggregate of goods and claims constituting what is commonly called an inheritance may be considered as a unit having an existence and an object of its own. ”

“ As the succession falls in the woman’s line, her sons and daughters, and the children of her daughters, bear the same name as herself, but not so the children of her sons, who will take the names of their respective mothers. ”

“ We may, however, be sure that the principle of hereditary succession must henceforth be limited within certain bounds. The idea of perpetuity, whether of punishment or of reward, is foreign from our age, and will not, certainly, be more acceptable to future ages. ”

“ Bracton, who wrote in the thirteenth century, tells us of the law of succession in his time. He says: ‘Of kinship and of relationship some are upwards and others are downwards, and others are travers or sidewards. Ancestors succeed on failure of those below them. ”

“ This natural law of succession, accordingly, took place among the Romans who made no more distinction between elder and younger, between male and female, in the inheritance of lands, than we do in the distribution of moveables. ”

“ In the first place, hereditary succession, when finally settled in some line of descent rigorously prescribed, involves that the possession of supreme power becomes independent of capacity for exercising it. The heir to a vacant throne may be, and often is, too young for discharging its duties; or he may be, and often is, too feeble in intellect, too deficient in energy, or too much occupied with the pleasures which his position offers in unlimited amounts; with the result that in the one case the regent, and in the other the chief minister, becomes the actual ruler. ”

“ In making good our supposition, it is not necessary to assume the fact (which we can seldom certainly know) that there has been, in any one family, a continuous succession of fathers and sons—the father living long enough to instruct the son. ”

“ The unity of the inheritance and the social part played by it will constitute the ruling considerations in the arrangement of succession. The personal factor will be subordinated to the real one.
In practice pure forms corresponding to these main conceptions occur seldom, and the actual systems of succession mostly appear as combinations of these various views. We shall try to give briefly an account of the following arrangements: (1) the joint family in so far as it bears on succession; (2) voluntary associations among co-heirs; (3) division of inheritance ”

“ Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the throne is subject to be possessed by a minor at any age; all which time the regency, acting under the cover of a king, have every opportunity and inducement to betray their trust. ”

“ The principle of succession, which had often caused serious disputes, was defined in 1904, to the effect that the chief may nominate any male descendant through males from himself or from any male ancestor, but failing such nomination, then the rule of primogeniture applies. ”

“ But in a settled and cultivated country, and among an advanced people, we maintain succession by primogeniture to be the most consonant, as a matter of theory, to the social feelings and requirements of man ”

“ Again a law was passed, by which the descendants were entitled to one third of the succession, and to one half if there were more than four. In France if a man die leaving one lawful child, he can only dispose of half of his estate by will ”

“ But when such a feud was given to a man, and his heirs, in general terms, then a more extended rule of succession took place; and when a feudatory died, his male descendants in infinitum were admitted to the succession. ”

“ It thus descends from every parent, from the father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and their ancestors in succession, and is thus multiplied and augmented in each descending posterity, remaining with each person, and being increased in each by his actual sins, and never being dissipated so as to become harmless except in those who are being regenerated by the Lord. ”

“ No doubt, in the ordinary course of succession, a widow and a daughter would inherit and divide among them in certain fixed proportions the personal property of a deceased but intestate husband and father, without the intervention of any jury to declare their rights. ”

“ FN 20 In examining the different titles to authority in government, we shall meet with many reasons to convince us, that the right of succession depends, in a great measure on the imagination. Mean while I shall rest contented with observing one example, which belongs to the present subject. Suppose that a person die without children, and that a dispute arises among his relations concerning his inheritance ”

“ When husband or wife died, without leaving relations, the survivor was called to the succession. A widow who was poor and unprovided for had a right to share in the succession of her deceased husband. ”

“ Real succession in swift motions without sense of succession. The reason I have for this odd conjecture is, from observing that, in the impressions made upon any of our senses, we can but to a certain degree perceive any succession ; which, if exceeding quick, the sense of succession is lost, even in cases where it is evident that there is a real succession. ”

“ You must remember that for generations my family had run on a very narrow margin of succession, there seldom, if ever, being more than two born in any generation of the family, so that there was always enough for the younger son or daughter ”

“ The law of succession, as with the Celts of Scotland, prescribed that the eldest surviving brother of the deceased monarch should be elected to his throne, and, failing him, the eldest nephew. But incompetent persons were almost invariably ignored by the elective body, although the choice was limited to one family. ”

“ It shall not be necessary for minor heirs to make any formal acceptance of a succession that may fall to them, but such acceptance shall be considered as made for them with benefit of inventory by operation of law, and shall in all respects have the force and effect of formal acceptance.' 'Art. ”

“ It was originally a military order for the purpose of supporting military government (for such were all governments founded in conquest) ; and to keep up a succession of this order for the purpose for which it was established, all the younger branches of those families were disinherited and the law of primogenitureship set up.
The nature and character of aristocracy shows itself to us in this law. It is the law against every other law of nature, and Nature herself calls for its destruction. Establish family justice, and aristocracy falls. ”