Virginia Argus

FROM THE ENQUIRER.

COMMUNICATION.

LAW CASE.

On Thursday and Friday last a legal question of great curiosity, novelty, and importance, was argued in the Court of Appeals. The name of the case was Stone against Keeling, and the circumstances are as follow:

One Keeling, some thirty or forty years ago, married a woman by whom he had a son. His wife then died, and after the lapse of a few years he married a lady who was known by the name of Mrs. Arbuthnot. This lady at the time of her intermarriage with Mr. Keeling had another husband who is still living. Mr. Arbuthnot and herself, not enjoying domestic happiness, separated, he continuing in the county of Accomack, on the Eastern shore of Virginia, she removing to the county of Princess Anne, where she married Mr. Keeling. Previous to this marriage Arbuthnot had frequently been absent from the state, although his absence had never been so long as to justify the presumption of his death. Two daughters were the fruit of this marriage, and Keeling and his second wife lived happily together until the day of their death. About two years ago Keeling died leaving a large estate. His son by the first wife is dead, leaving two children, and his daughters by the second wife are married.

Shortly after the death of Keeling, the husbands of his daughters (the appellants in this suit) applied to the county court of Princess Anne for Letters of Administration on his estate, as being the next of kin to the deceased. This was opposed by the mother and guardian of the children left by Keeling's son, on the ground that the daughters were illegitimate, they being the issue of an illegal and void marriage, and consequently not entitled to any portion of the estate. The county court sustained the objection, & appointed the guardian of the grand-children the Administrator. On an appeal to the District Court of Suffolk, that court affirmed the judgment of the county court, from which judgment the husbands of the daughters appealed to the Court of Appeals,

The case chiefly depended on the exposition of a clause in the law of Descents, passed in the year 1785, which took effect on the 1st of January 1787; the clause declares that "the issue of marriages deemed null in law, shall nevertheless be legitimate." By the common law the children of all illegal marriages were illegitimate.

The question was, whether the common law on that subject was totally or partially altered.

It was contended for the Appellants that the legislature intended to change the law entirely, and that the innocent offspring of all illegal marriages were legitimated.

For the Appellee it was contended that the legislature only meant to legitimate the issue of such illegal marriages as required an annulling act to make them void, and not such as were absolutely void from the beginning: that a marriage with a person already married, was void from the very moment of its being contracted, and that consequently the issue of such illegal marriages were still illegitimate as at common law. It was also urged that the law of 1785 did not apply to this case, as the daughters were born previous to the 1st of January 1787. The reply made to this argument by the Appellants counsel was that the law operated from the date of the death of the father, and not from the time of the children's birth.

The court on Saturday last unanimously decreed that the common law on this subject was totally changed, that the issue of all illegal marriages were legitimate under the act of 1785; they reversed the judgment of the District Court, and directed the administration of the estate to be conferred on the Appellants.