certain categories of prohibited legislation in all or several colonies. 24 But we are primarily concerned with the provision of the 1696 act. Before taking view of the various acts declared null and void, let us examine the meaning of the seemingly interchangeable phrases "contrary to the laws of England" and "repugnant to the laws of England" in colonial charters and commissions. Historically these formulae in their origin were intended as caveats against undue exercise of by-law power. As we have already noticed, there is reason to believe that when they came to be applied to plantation charters their intendment was not to introduce the common law as such (for this would have involved a diminution of prerogative), but to set up a standard rigid enough to restrict the grantees and broad enough to give utter discretion to the grantor. This general political intention of the formulae is indicated further by an alternate expression used in some charters and commissions that laws were to be "as near as may be agreeable" to the laws of England. 25 Obviously we have in this case a test as impalpable as the "reasonableness" by which the courts at Westminster determined the validity of local customs and by-laws. Of only one constant can we be certain, and that is, mere variance was not regarded as repugnancy or contrariety. 26 Probably, also, it may be 24 24 Geo. 11, c. 53, declared ipso facto null and void certain categories of future monetary legislation in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. All acts, orders, resolutions, or votes for the issuance of paper bills or bills of credit, for the prolongation or depreciation of such existing currency were thus prohibited. 4 Geo. 111, c. 34, declared null and void all future acts, orders, resolutions, or assembly resolves issuing and endowing with legal tender qualities bills of credit or prolonging said qualities in current bills of credit beyond the time fixed for discharge. The Declaratory Act (6 Geo. 111, c. 12) declared all colonial resolutions, votes, orders, and proceedings denying or questioning the power and authority of Parliament to bind the colonies, utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever. -" 3 Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, 1628, 1638, 1642, 1681; 5 ibid., 2746; 6 ibid., 3215. For commissions cf. supra, p. 215. 28 In a November, 1716, representation of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania to the governor on the subject of affirmation acts in the province it was stated, "if it [the colonial act] must be termed repugnant because it differs from or is not the same with the act of Parliament, then the clause of the royal charter which grants power to the Governor and As- sembly here to alter the laws of England for the descent of land, enjoying estates, and punishing felonies in this province . . . appears to be useless and in vain. "But it is further to be considered, that as the term repugnant always implys an absolute opposition or contrariety in matter, it cannot be said, that an act of this province, which enables those called Quakers to serve in office, upon juries, and to be evidences in all cases, the circumstances of the countrey requiring that it should be so, is contrary to an act of Great Britain, which enables them only to give evidence in civil cases; these two differ 'tis true, and so it was certainly considered and expected at the time of the royal grant, that our acts might in some measure differ from those in England, otherwise those of England would suffice, and no such power for altering them needed to have been granted; on the contrary, the act of this province, pursuant to the directions of that royal charter, is so nearly agreeable as to our conveniency may be to the statue provided for Quakers in Great Britain" (2 Mins. Prov. Coun. Pa., 621). Discussing the appeal of Philips v. Savage in Massachusetts (see injra, p. 562) the Reverend Benjamin Coleman stated: "Certainly we must distinguish between what is different from the laws of England and what is repugnant thereto.