The process of Outlawry was common in England under the Saxon kings. By it a person was placed wholly out of the protection of the law, so that he was incapable of bringing any action for redress of injury; and it also worked a forfeiture of all goods and chattels to the king. Until some time after the Conquest it was confined to cases of felony; but then it was extended by statute to all actions for trespass vi et armis. By later statutes it has been extended to other civil actions. An outlaw might be arrested by the writ of capias utlagatum, and committed until the outlawry was reversed. But this reversal was granted on any plausible ground, if the party came into court himself or by attorney; the process being used in modern times merely to compel appearance. (a) In some of our older States process of outlawry was permitted and regulated by statute; but it never had much practical existence in this country, and is now wholly disused. (b)

Attainder, by the common law, was the inseparable consequence of every sentence of death. Attainder for treason worked a forfeiture of all estates to the king, and such "corruption of blood " that he could neither inherit, nor could any one inherit from him; he was utterly deprived of all rights, and wholly incapacitated from acting under the protection of the law, either for himself or for another. In the words of Blackstone, " the law sets a note of infamy upon him, puts him out of its protection, and takes no further care of him than to see him executed; " and "by an anticipation of his punishment he *is already dead in law. " (c) During the conflicts in England between different claimants of the throne, and between the sovereign and the people, this tremendous engine of oppression was unsparingly used, and sometimes under circumstances which gave to it the character of extremest cruelty. It may well be believed that such a process would not find favor among us, either when we were colonies, or after we had become States; and it has no existence here.

(a) 3 Bl. Com. 284.

(b) See 7 Dane, Abr. 313.

(c) 4 Bl. Com. 380.

Excommunication expels a person from the Church of England, and as the civil law comes in aid of the ecclesiastical power of that country, it has been of great moment there; and as it worked a disability almost entire, it was an instrument of great power in the hands of the ecclesiastical authorities. But in this sense excommunication can have no existence in this country, as we have no national church, recognized and armed by the civil law. We have, however, churches, which, with us, are only voluntary associations organized for religious purposes. As such they are recognized and protected by the law. They must have the right to determine as to their own membership, and to provide for this by forms and by-laws, which, if they contradict no principles or provisions of law, and interfere with no personal rights, would doubtless be regarded by the courts. (d) But all questions which come up in relation to the rights or contracts of a person severed from such society, by an act of " excommunication," would be governed by the general principles of the law of property, or of the law of contracts.

(d) Farnsworth v. Stores, 5 Cush. 412.