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FRANCOIS XAVIER MARTIN (1762-1846)

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 794 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FRANCOIS See also:XAVIER See also:MARTIN (1762-1846)  , See also:American jurist and author, was See also:born in See also:Marseilles, See also:France, on the 17th of See also:March 1762, of Provencal descent . In 1780 he went to See also:Martinique, and before the See also:close of the American See also:war of See also:Independence went to See also:North Carolina, where (in New See also:Bern) he taught See also:French and learnt See also:English, and set up as a printer . He studied See also:law, and was admitted to the North Carolina ,See also:bar. in 1789 . He published various legal books, and edited Acts of the North Carolina See also:Assembly from 1715 to r8o3 (2nd ed., 1809) . He was a member of the See also:lower See also:house of the See also:General Assembly in 1806-1807 . In 1809 he was commissioned a See also:judge of the See also:superior See also:court of the territory of See also:Mississippi, and in March 1810 became judge of the superior court of the territory of See also:Orleans . Here the law was in a chaotic See also:condition, what with French law before O'Reilly's See also:rule, then a See also:Spanish See also:code, and in 1808 the See also:Digest of the See also:Civil See also:Laws, an See also:adaptation by See also:James See also:Brown and See also:Moreau Lislet of the code of See also:Napoleon, which repealed the Spanish fueros, partidas, recopilationes and laws of the Indies only as they conflicted with its provisions . See also:Martin published in 1811 and 1813 reports of cases decided by the superior court of the territory of Orleans . For two years from See also:February 1813 Martin was See also:attorney-general of the newly established See also:state of See also:Louisiana, and then until March 1846 was a judge and (from 1836 to 1846) presiding judge of the supreme court of the state . For the See also:period until 183o he published reports of the decisions of the supreme court; and in 1816 he published two volumes, one French and one English, of A General Digest of tke Acts of Legislatures of the See also:Late Territory of Orleans and of the State of Louisiana . He won the name of the " See also:father of Louisiana See also:jurisprudence " and his See also:work was of See also:great assistance to See also:Edward See also:Livingston, See also:Pierre Derbigny and Moreau Lislet in the Louisiana codification of 1821-1826 . Martin's eyesight had begun to fail when he was seventy, and after 1836 he could no longer write opinions with his own See also:hand.l He died in New Orleans on the 11th of See also:December 1846 .

Martin translated See also:

Robert J . See also:Pothier On Obligations (1802), and wrote The See also:History of Louisiana from the Earliest Period (2 vols . 1827–1829) and The History of North Carolina (2 vols., 1829) . There His holographic will in favour of his See also:brother (written in 1844 and devising See also:property See also:worth nearly $400,000) was unsuccessfully contested by the statevof Louisiana on the ground that the will was void as being a legal and See also:physical impossibility, or as being an attempted See also:fraud on the state, as under it the state would not receive a to % tax if the property went to the heirs of Martin (as intestate) in France.is a memoir by See also:Henry A . Bullard in See also:part ii. of B . F . French's See also:Historical Collections of Louisiana (See also:Philadelphia, 1850), and one by W . W . See also:Howe in See also:John F . Condon's edition of Martin's History of Louisiana (New Orleans, 1882) .

End of Article: FRANCOIS XAVIER MARTIN (1762-1846)
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