Page "Common law" Paragraph 66

Over time, as new states were formed from federal territories, these territorial reception statutes became obsolete and were re-enacted as state law.

For example, a reception statute enacted by legislation in the state of Washington requires that " he common law, so far as it is not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States, or of the state of Washington nor incompatible with the institutions and condition of society in this state, shall be the rule of decision in all the courts of this state.

" In this way, the common law was eventually incorporated into the legal systems of every state except Louisiana ( which inherited a civil law system from its French colonizers before the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, adopting a code similar to but not directly based on the Napoleonic Code of 1804 ).